


The Great Topaz

by iamamiwhoami



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 1920s, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, F. Scott Fitzgerald - Freeform, F/F, First Person Narrator, Fluff, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by The Great Gatsby, Jealousy, Light Smut, Lost Love, M/M, Party, Past Abuse, Revenge, Tragedy, beronica, choni, kevangs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-05-16 13:57:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19319575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamamiwhoami/pseuds/iamamiwhoami
Summary: In nineteen twenty-two, after arriving in Long Island and settling in a modest house in the West Egg estuary, Fangs Fogarty embarks on a journey that changes his life forever. Surrounded by painful betrayals, lost dreams and endless tears, he must discover, behind the walls of a castle of wonders, the true meaning of love.





	1. Reddish Light

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys! Some considerations, if you allow me.
> 
> • Based on "The Great Gatsby", by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925.
> 
> • Fangs is our narrator, but he comes to tell us a story about Toni. 
> 
> • I understand and respect the work in its original form, but this version comes with a new perspective and, in a certain way, a new message.
> 
> • We will have only ten chapters, updated regularly.
> 
> • English is not my native language, but please, give it a chance? It will be my honor.
> 
> • I never cared too much about comments and kudos, sometimes the quieter readers appreciate the work much more than the talkers, but you are most welcome to express yourself. 
> 
> • Please read the warnings.
> 
> I hope with all my heart you enjoy this journey. :)

 

In the summer of nineteen thirty-two, a mansion is about to be auctioned at the Long Island estuary in West Egg. I walk through the ruins of this colossal palace, the cracked marble, the empty pool with mud on the walls, the great dusty halls. All the gardens have perished and the grass is so tall that it hits the shins. The stained glass windows are scattered on parapets and the gold doorknobs have been stolen years ago. The rare paintings and sculptures are nothing but useless fossils hung on the walls and rested on brittle furniture. Stunning colors and scents that dyed and stained those corridors disappear completely and everything smells of death and oblivion.

I watch the magnanimous coppery pipe organ in the hall of the central wing and touch one of the keys, sounding only a muffled note, poor, coarse, the perfect symphony of everything around me. Even the beach, once majestic on soft golden sands, is no more than a heap of wood debris, seaweed, broken shells, and almost buried, half of the great silver gate of the main entrance with a rusty "T".

_T..._

"Fangs?" A soft trembling voice makes me turn on the platform between the stairs to find a beautiful familiar face watching me from below. "Is that really you, Fangs?"

Kevin Keller stares at me with furrowed brows and tears in his eyes and he looks as young as before. He squeezes the boater hat in his hands, the same one I used to wear years ago and ended up leaving in this wonderful damn island, as if he would rip it at any moment. His three-piece suit is white, except for the blue vest, and his oxford shoes are covered with sand. He certainly aged, of course, it's been ten years since the last time we saw each other, and he seems tired and more robust, but it's something about his countenance, though still cold and shrewd, that makes him still look like a young gentleman, handsome and vivacious, laughing at me in those golden days as if it told me a thousand secrets.

"Kevin Keller." I smile at him because I'm still a fool.

"It is been a while." He looks at the filthy floor where before anyone could see they own reflection like a mirror. "Where have you been?"

"You know...." I sit back on the piano that lets out its rough sound. "Around."

"And what are you doing here?" He stares at me again, seemingly frustrated.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"There you are!" A hoarse voice echoes in the hall and a brute in golf gear approaches, grabbing him by the waist. "I've been looking all over for you. My dad is impatient, but he thinks it's worth a shot at this dump. I'm not convinced, but for you, Kevin Mason, I'll make any sacrifice, even buy a damn rotting property on this side of the estuary."

_Kevin Mason._

"Moose." Kevin clears his throat. "Moose, this is Fangs Fogarty, an old friend of the last decade. Fangs, this is Marmaduke Mason, my husband."

The brute looks at me with his dead fish eyes and I waved unwillingly, still absorbing what I just heard. It is no surprise that Kevin married a cave man in a pretty suit and fur coat, but those sad eyes on him make me suddenly furious, as if he is not happy and I have some plot of guilt.

Maybe I have, after all.

"Fangs." The brute repeats and smiles like a tickling pig. "Funny name."

"Some say it's chinese." I smile at him with the same disregard.

"You don't look Chinese." He measures me like an idiot, because of course a rich white man has to offer his share of imbecility.

Except for Kevin. I ignore the brute spouse and look back at him because he is the most beautiful thing in these ruins right now. He was always different. A wealthy heir, of course, a little white boy from England, but there was always something intriguing about him, perhaps the way he always knew about people's secrets and how he could manipulate them with it, but at the same time he was always giving favors and hearing what everyone had to say. A strange crossing of altruism and dissimulation.

"Come on, honey." The brute pulls the subject of my lost dreams by the arm like a child in trouble. "My father is waiting. We'll be back on the day of the auction."

Kevin looks at me as if he's desperate and I want to rip him out of the thick, strong fingers of the brute and kiss him until he smiles again. But I've never been a fighter. I've never been brave. I'm still not.

"It was a pleasure to see you again, Fangs." He smiles faintly at me. "Can we schedule tea before you leave? You can find me on the..."

"Phone book." I nod. "I know."

I feel more comfortable alone in the mansion. I've come to detest everyone who went in there one day and I realize that I tend to detest everyone who still may come. No one was or will be worthy of stepping in this refuge, the wreckage of a sacred hope swallowed by time and devastation. Only me. And that's why I'm going to cast off this place at that auction, even if I have to poison the whiskeys of all the disgraceful snobs of New York. They probably want to buy it and turn it into some garbage bin or something, and I will never let that happen. I will never let them stain the graveyard and sanctuary of the beauty and the virtue in a mundane and insignificant thing.

After discovering that Mr. Andrews had recently passed away, but that his son, Archibald, had embraced his legacy and kept the builder company, expanding it into a large furniture network, I decided to rent for the next few days the same small house of my most intense and tragic summer ten years ago, right next to the mansion, where I could see its towering walls deteriorating. At nightfall, still with the smile of Kevin K... Kevin Mason in my thoughts, I steer my way to the unstable pier, I sit on the edge and I light a cigarette, watching, through the deep fog, blinking across the estuary, a reddish light from which I shall never forget.

Red is not the color of hope, but this is what that distant light used to represent to someone.

Someone whose hope changed my life forever.

 

It was the summer of nineteen twenty-two, and I had just arrived in New York, following on the train to Long Island with just a briefcase, a pile of books and sweat-baths dripping under my boater hat and soaking my shabby shoes. Through the windows I could see the feverish world around me, the Queensboro Bridge, the valley of ashes and the coal factories, huge boats crossing the canal, gigantic buildings, countless hats, bright dresses and speedy convertibles, the absolute agitation of two incompatible equidistant coexisting, East Egg and its mansions and lights and luxury and secret conspiracies; and West Egg and its simplicity and dirt and stink of hard work and violent conflicts. Only the sound was similar between the extremities: Armstrong, Gershwin, Williams, Crumit, Meroff, Dixieland, an unprecedented musical orgy.

I always wanted to be an author of musical pieces. Mom thought I had the gift when I was a little boy, but dad immediately tried to dissuade her from this perspective, insisting that I would become a prosperous business man like him. I do not know why I remembered it at the time, in the heat of a train to Long Island, but I think it was the Broadway posters that filled my eyes with magic on the platform in New York. I don't know why I remembered it at the time, in the heat of a train to Long Island, but I think it was the Broadway posters that filled my eyes with magic on the platform in New York. In any case, I came with my degree, my scars from the last war, my books and my empty pockets to work with bond business in Wall Street, determined to spend the summer studying and honing my knowledge.

It is fair to admit, however, that it was not an easy task. I decided to rent a small house in West Egg, far from the luxurious mansions of the new rich, or rather, I was compelled to do so with the lack of money on my count. The owner, Mr. Frederick Andrews, offered it all summer for eighty dollars per month. It was nothing more than a cold wooden floor cubicle with a ruined garden, but at least it was quiet. And of course, the difficulty of the task was to observe every day, on the beach just ahead, the handsome young men and women in swimming suits and sunglasses, laughing and gesticulating at me as if inviting me to I join them. But the most important thing about the place I was in was, in fact, the colossal castle next door to my miserable hut, a fortress out of the fairy-tale books, unbelievable and monumental, where every night, arriving exhausted from work, I could glimpse the mysterious neighbor I had not yet met. A distinguished Lady named _Topaz_.

The true story of that summer began with my cordial visit to my dear cousin Cheryl across the bay at one of the most magnificent and sumptuous properties of East Egg. Miles of fresh grass and exotic gardens, tamed steeds running around the field, dozens of servants like statues on each door, a vast expanse of trees and huge columns supporting the grand red stone mansion, fifty windows, four long chimneys and a hall of five large glass doors.

Her wife was Veronica Lodge. We went to the same university and since those times she was the richest and most popular among all the students, a rising star, heir to her father's empire in Chicago. No one really knew what the Lodge business was all about and what Hiram Lodge was supposed to do as a supposed emperor, but no one had the guts to ask, and all who dared simply disappeared, until no one else asked anymore. But Veronica was too charming and insightful, a born conqueror, both in business and in love, and what truly made her empress into her own merit was her absolute talent, her dealings with horses, an equestrian athlete, unbeatable champion , prestigious throughout the country.

"Ronnie!" I put on my best smile when the butler took me to her in the field and she jumped elegantly from the horse in her blue riding clothes, throwing the reins to the stall and her helmet to the fumbling assistant.

"Dear Fangs!" She hugged me with extraordinary strength, taking me by surprise, because she was never very affectionate. Maybe Cheryl had changed that in her. That's what love does, is not it? It changes you.

"You look flawless and beautiful as ever, ma'am." I greeted her sincerely, because there was no denying how vigorous she was, not even if I wanted to.

"And you're glowing, my friend!" She squeezed my cheeks like a child. "How are your musical projects going?"

"Now I'm in the bond business, Ronnie." I explained shyly.

"Well, I know a lot of important people, you know." She danced her shoulders with extreme grace. "If you need anything, just a word. Now come!"

She grabbed me by the arm and guided me like a foolish tourist through the immense corridors trodden with trophies and glittering medals from her competitions and oil paintings depicting her, Cheryl and a little girl, the daughter they adopted, Josephine, who I still I was about to meet. I couldn't help noticing at the moment how Cheryl seemed distant and melancholic in the paintings, but it was probably only the painter's vision, very unworthy to portray my precious cousin. We passed many doors where I imagined what was inside, rare treasures, ivory furnishings, indian and asian ornaments that Veronica brought from her travels, until we reached a large double mahogany door, where she smiled at me very proudly and opened as if we were about to enjoy a spectacle.

To my astonishment, it was. A real spectacle indeed.

It was a huge side salon surrounded by wide glass doors as in the main entrance, all open, the wind invading and raising the white curtains like delicate veils, rising and falling in a ritual of grace and purity. Right in the middle, around bright furnishings and comfortable little armchairs, a divan of red upholstery and gold edges, where it rested the one I most wanted to see, a crystal chandelier gleaming over her.

"I am paralyzed with joy!" The melodious voice gripped my heart. "Dear cousin, my baby, is it truly you?"

_Cheryl Marjorie Blossom._

Or, at that precise moment, the other Mrs. Lodge.

Her face came up slowly, her chin landing on the head of the divan, her eyes narrow, her lips opening in a warm smile, painted red, her autumnal twilight hair like waves on her right shoulder, and deep in those brown eyes of her, the promise that when she sees you, you are the most important person in the whole world and nothing else matters but you, some kind of excitement and appreciation for your presence exuding from her, even though I knew she could be absolutely sarcastic and chaotic at any moment, unpredictably. I felt glad to see her in that dress of white fluffy feathers, as if she were surrounded by a cloud, it made her look more harmless in that magisterial beauty of her filled with traps and tricks.

We didn't share blood ties, but my father was Clifford Blossom's loyal partner in the maple syrup business and we both grew up together in Louisville. Cheryl always had a strong temper, she was always fierce and proud and irreverent, but at the same time she kept for me and her twin brother, Jason, who was murdered when we turned sixteen, a delicacy that holds all the tenderness and protection of the world. We used to play to wear each other's clothes, steal syrup from the warehouse to bet who would finish faster with a whole bottle, and she always liked to draw me, especially my face, she was very talented in every stroke. I kept them all, they're still somewhere in my old boy's room in Kentucky.

She also always loved red. I never understood why exactly.

"Tell me, my lovely cousin..." She hid half of her face behind the head of the divan, smiling lazily and sassy as a teenager. "Do they miss me in Chicago?"

"They've been devastated since the day you left." I confirmed it.

"Oh, you tiny hideous liar..." Her eyes flashed like a dangerous siren.

"I swear!" I laughed and approached, dramatically gesticulating my hands so that she understood the seriousness of my words. "They come together in the churches every afternoon and mourn, they painted the fences in red and every saturday the bar is full of drunken whiners crying out 'Miss Blossom, Miss Blossom, where is our Miss Blossom?', I swear!" I leaned over her, my best expression of stamped pain.

"Marvelous!" She laughed so refined and beautiful, like an angel in disguise, hugging me by the neck and pulling me toward her, making me roll over the divan and fall to the floor on the carpet. "Ronnie, my dear, let's go back to Chicago immediately!"

We both laughed at everything, but Veronica rolled her eyes and poured herself a glass of wine, moving away to speak to the servants at the door. Only then I notice the fourth presence in the room, a young man lying on the divan beside my cousin, reading an art magazine. He was undeniably very handsome and, judging by his argentine suit, he was definitely as rich as Cheryl and Veronica. But I couldn't see his face immediately and he didn't seem so interested in seeing mine.

"Kevin, s'il vous plait, don't be rude..." Cheryl crouched on the divan and threw herself at him, ripping the magazine off and pulling on his tie." Fangs, I introduce you Kevin Keller, the formidable Broadway choreographer. Kevin, this is my beloved cousin, Fangs Fogarty." She turned to me again, a lovely wink presented to me. "He's a businessman."

I finally saw his face and I was terrified. He was a handsome creature, but at the same time he seemed so petulant and vain that it made me feel like I was in absolute danger around him. He had soft brown hair, which aroused the urge to touch, flattened lips, a bored expression and a dark scar on the knuckles of his right hand. Right there I knew that it pleased me to look at him exactly for what he showed me in the contempt of his beautiful green eyes. I could've stayed the rest of that odd afternoon watching him.

"Come on, Fangs, tell me." Veronica cut off the contact of my eyes with his. "Where are you living? You can stay with us if you want."

"Brilliant." Cheryl smiled and nudged Kevin's waist in a mischievous tone. "Kevin will stay with us for the rest of the summer and I will not let you two leave without identical rings on your fingers..."

Veronica rolled her eyes again and I couldn't help adjusting my own tie to disguise my discomfort and desire to ask if my cousin was displeasing her for some reason.

"I'm ignoring your existence from now on." Kevin laughed at her and left the divan, walking around the room like a model on french catwalks.

"So, my boy?" Veronica snorted. "We don't have all day."

"I appreciate the hospitality, old friend." I softened her impatience. "But I already rented a house across the bay for a bargain price and I'm fine."

"West Egg, you mean?" Veronica winced in horror.

"That's what I can afford." I defended myself.

"I think it's splendid and lovely, my dear." Cheryl winked at me again.

"West Egg?" Kevin shivered, looking suddenly interested. "You must know Lady Topaz..."

"She's my neighbor, but I still don't know her." I confessed.

"Topaz...?" Cheryl's voice sounded stunned and melancholy, attracting a suspicious look on Kevin, a bitter on Veronica and a confused on me. "What Topaz..?"

Before Kevin could risk an answer, the raucous bell sounded in the butler's gloved hand and the feast was announced. We all followed in silence to the dining room, where the fire flickered in the candlesticks, and the setting sun made everything turn orange, even Cheryl's hair like undulating flames on her right side. Veronica also looked more beautiful in that light, I could not help noticing, but the renowned choreographer on the other side of the table was the one who caught my attention, even as the dishes were served and the conversations slipped from subject to subject, me as a mere spectator of those powerful individuals around me.

Suddenly the ringing of the telephone echoed throughout the mansion, and absolutely everyone at the table, also the servants, fell into a silence filled with tension and disgust. Cheryl pressed her fork in her hand as if she was about to pry someone, then she dropped it on the table in a raucous noise when her knuckles reddened. Kevin drummed his fingers on his chin and stared at her with concern. Veronica was the only one to make a sound, snorting disgruntledly, ripping the napkin from her lap, throwing it on the plate and striding to the butler's signal with the phone off the hook.

"Excuse me, gentlemen." Cheryl smiled falsely and followed her wife into the other room.

"You know..." I tried to take advantage of the privacy to reach the man who captivated me. "The lady you talked about, Topaz, she's my neighbor and I..."

"Shhh." He shook his hands, discreetly scandalized. "I want to listen..."

"What's there to listen?"

"You don't know?" He craned his neck, looking through the glass doors. "I thought by now everyone would know..."

"What's there to know?" I insisted impatiently.

"Veronica has a woman." He whispered darkly. "I mean, another woman, back in New York. She should have the decency not to call at dinner time, don't you think?"

I didn't mind answering. I was in the world war and after surviving a war you can't be impressed by many things, but that managed to reach and beat me. Not only by the stained nature of an old friend like Veronica, it was mostly about Cheryl and how she probably felt about it. When Jason was murdered, I promised myself that I would look after her, but I couldn't be part of her life the same way as when we were kids. I judged she would find happiness sooner or later and I had this confirmation when I received a letter from my mother, when I was in the third artillery division in Paris, telling about Cheryl's marriage to none other than the illustrious heiress Lodge and my old companion of Yale.

It struck me that she didn't look happy at that very moment.

They went back to the table in silence and my heart ached as I saw the trail of dry tears on my cousin's face. Veronica looked exhausted, angry, demanding whiskey and a cigar as she sat on the opposite end of her wife's. Kevin decided to involve everyone talking about art and Broaday's plans, and for a moment I congratulated him and thought we were appeased at night, until the ringing of the phone echoed again and Cheryl's sigh cut the air like a razor, this time she leaving the room before anyone else, plunging into the gardens as if the nightly cold could barely touch her.

Kevin followed Veronica to the phone like a gossipy old woman and I followed Cheryl into the gardens, putting my own coat over her shoulders. She smiled at me and I thought it was genuine, but there was some immeasurable pain lost in her smile that I had never seen, a pain that came after the last time we saw each other personally, six years before I went to war.

I should have asked if she was good.

Maybe she had given me the truth.

"I still need to meet your little girl." I remembered the fact. "How is she? Is she already talking and breaking crystals around the house?"

"She likes to hum and sing." Her satisfied tone almost overwhelmed her sadness. "My Josephine will be a nightingale, I'm sure of it."

"If she becomes half the woman you are, my cousin, I know she will be someone of great worth..." The compliment came naturally because it was true to me.

But... I don't know if that was enough for her. She closed in on herself again, curling into my coat and staring at the starry sky for a minute, new tears trickling down, almost crystallized, on her pale face. Since we were children she had sporadic times of immense sadness, her parents were always harder and unfair to her, as if they loved Jason and just stunted her, and everything got worse after his death. I always knew when she was hurt with them and with anything else, but not that time. That night, watching the bay under the starry infinity, there was an absolute overwhelming sorrow in her cry that I couldn't identify the reason.

"I didn't adopt my Josephine at the orphanage in New York as Veronica likes to say to everyone. A great friend of mumsy, Sierra McCoy, died in childbirth and begged our family to take care of the child. I knew Veronica wouldn't oppose. When mumsy arrived with that lovely little package, I asked if it was a boy or a girl and she replied with regret that she was a girl." She began to speak as if she were confessing a severe sin.

"Cousin..." I whispered.

"And I said to myself..." She cried and looked so deep into my eyes that I thought she would plunge into my soul. "I'm glad she's a girl, but I expect her to become an insensitive cold bastard like her other mother, so she will never become a romantic like me and she'll never have dreams that yearn for love. Because love vanish so fast, like all the precious things we know... And they never come back..."

There she was, the real her, Cheryl Marjorie Blossom. A young aristocrat, traumatized and solitary, who always craved for love, love that was almost always denied to her. I thought she'd found love in the arms of my friend Veronica Lodge, but there I was not sure anymore. What an accursed irony, my cousin, the epitome of beauty and etiquette, the lady who travelled the world and portrayed it in her perfect sketches, married to an illustrious empress, living with her and their little daughter in an unparalleled mansion and yet...

She was still a ruin of sorrow and mourn.

I drove back to West Egg that night with a broken heart, as if her pain had touched me as I had never before been touched, as if she possessed all the pain in the universe and offered a handful for me, a handful I accepted and absorbed and would carry with me forever.

Before entering the house and throwing myself in any corner to fall asleep with Veronica's betrayal, Cheryl's melancholy and Kevin's petulance in my thoughts, I glimpse from my poor garden a figure at the end of the pier, the night too dark to see perfectly, but somehow I knew it was her, the mysterious woman, my neighbor, Lady Topaz. All I could distinguish was a yellow suit and long curly hair fluttering in the darkness, and suddenly one of her hands raising like a dying man crying to the heavens for absolution, right toward the reddish light that blinked incessantly across the bay. My whole body shivered at that gesture, it was so ceremonial and subtle in her movements, as if she were truly trying to reach something and could feel everything, as if her fingers could actually touch the red light, it was powerful, it was intriguing, it shook all my bones and I almost started walking lostly on the sand.

I wished I had gone there to talk to her.

Despondent and overwhelmed, I simply decided not to go.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for getting here! See you guys soon. :) 
> 
> Note.1: I know the first settings may not please you, but I promise the romance here are between Cheryl and Toni, Fangs and Kevin and Veronica and Betty.
> 
> Note.2: Veronica is technically our villain here. I wanted to use a character I admire to give strength to her personality. Please, don't take it personally. I love her with all my heart.
> 
>  
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	2. She and Mrs. Jones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We all looked at the back of the workshop to find a beautiful young woman, with slim hips and wavy golden hair, leaning against an old Ford, a wrench in her hand and grease covering her fingers and her blouse. Beautiful and wild.
> 
> There I was in front of Elizabeth Jones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! One more for the day. Thank you for having me.
> 
>  
> 
> Warning: A graphic description of violence in this one. Brief.
> 
>  
> 
> Wish you a good reading. :)

 

Three days had passed before I left home for some leisure. My most interesting, though unique, entertainment, was to watch the constant movement, the in and out of the property next door. From Thursday to Sunday there were huge extravagant parties every night in the mansion, endless gatherings of illustrious and plebeian people, celebrities and authorities, clergymen and libertines.

Every Wednesday the trucks came in punctually with supplies and beverages, decorative items of all glitz and shapes, and all the employees began to prepare the property to receive all of Long Island for the next few days. All that is possible to imagine about a good party multiplied a hundred times when it came to these that kept me awake at night. Flower arrangements in greek vases, silver bowls, exotic fruits, the most expensive champagne on the continent, streamers and confetti and glitter of all the most majestic colors and sparkles. Six employes were needed to carry each of the twenty spotlights, and a ferry was reserved to carry thirty musicians, a whole orchestra, to my neighbor's castle. Even before nightfall, there was a line of cars and people on the avenue at the main entrance, people about whom I wondered if I was intimate with Lady Topaz or whether they just, as rumors say, would show up there and enjoy the party until the end without knowing the hostess.

Well, on this third day I headed back to the East Egg, where Veronica was waiting for me sitting in her sparkling blue coupé in an elegant ivory suit striped under a long black velvet coat and a cream scarf fluttering around her neck. All of this and the stylized homburg hat and the pearly sunglasses, made me feel like a peasant in my brown vest under the best white shirt I could find in my suitcase. At least my suede nubuck shoes were brand new.

_Note: I regretted bragging about my shoes when I found out where we would stop before arriving in New York._

Cheryl didn't come into the hall to greet me, nor did she show herself happily from one of the windows. The interior of the mansion looked cold and silent, I peered behind the butler in the wide glass doors and I could glimpse for a second the red hair of her falling on the face that she covered under her trembling hands, her body huddled in an armchair. It was when Kevin clapped my view, closing in on me to close the door and gave me those eyes of him, always so distant, filled with regret.

"Cheryl is sick." Veronica honked and then impatiently explained. "Let her rest alone."

"Sick from what?" I asked suspiciously.

"Very, very sick." She hit the hammer with no chance of contestation.

I shrugged and got into the car, her voice making it clear that I do it, even if she didn't say it. "Maybe we can get a doctor on the way back." I suggested.

She looked at me mortified before turning the key, opening a strange and incredulous smile, putting the hat on the bench and sighing deeply. "If your innocence were not a little annoying, my good friend, it would be lovely."

 

It was about halfway to New York that the highway merged parallel to the railway line and we entered the valley of ashes, near the factories, grotesque hills of stone and charcoal, the smell of soot in the air and the smoke clouding the senses, the workers covered in sweat with their tools in action. I wished to go by train to talk more quietly, but my friend slipped us into the blue coupé and disembarked into the middle of the valley, stopping abruptly in front of a mechanic's shop surrounded by a few yellow brick houses belonging to the more assiduous workers, with only an isolated restaurant on the side of the railway line and a bar at the end with stray dogs gnawing bones.

The name Jones swung on a filthy sign, right next to a sign written in ink "Buying and selling cars". I didn't know what we were doing there, but the suspicion haunted my heart instantly.

"Come, my friend." Veronica summoned me up, gracefully exiting the coupé and winking at me as if we were about to play tricks as we did at Yale. "I want you to meet my girl."

I should have been outraged, definitely. I should have held Veronica by the shoulders, rattled her and asked if she had lost her mind, I should have said I would not take part in that absurdity and that my cousin deserved better. I wanted to, I swear I wanted to. I should have reprimanded her for hurting Cheryl and embarrassing her publicly. I should have asked, as a good friend, the reason she was doing it as if it were nothing wrong.

I didn't.

The workshop was nothing short of muffled and crammed with old tools and books. Apparently the only relatively beautiful thing, and also strangely the only car in sight, was a dusty Ford in the corner of the garage, a body tilted inside the hood in the shadows, unidentifiable. On the counter lay, with his face buried in a typewriter, a slender, frowning man, brushing his short black hair under a battered beret, occasionally pulling on his shoulder suspenders.

"Greetings, Jones." Veronica looked around with disdain, not even raising a hand to greet the man who looked up in astonishment. "How's business?"

"Mrs. Lodge." He blinked dazedly. "I can't complain..."

"Complaints wouldn't do any good." She teased and I wondered if he would understand her utter sarcasm.

"When are you going to sell me that car, the L-29 turquoise?" He poured himself cold coffee and approached us, casually beckoning to me. I told myself that he could use a good shower.

"Soon." She was not amused by his smile. "My men are working on it."

"Your men work slowly." He smiled boldly.

"Well..." A melodious voice erupted and we all looked at the back of the workshop to find a young woman, with slim hips and wavy golden hair, leaning against an old Ford, a wrench in her hand and grease covering her fingers and her blouse. Beautiful and wild. "Someone needs to get the job done, after all."

There I was in front of Elizabeth Jones.

And I _knew_ she was Ronnie's girl.

"Mrs. Jones." Veronica sighed. "Always a pleasure."

"Don't you just stand there, Jug. Offer a drink to the lady and the gentleman."

Jughead seemed to wake up, blushing. "Oh, yes, yes, of course, I'll be right back..." He ran upstairs and began to stumble and make noise on the second floor.

Suddenly the atmosphere changed from water to wine and the blonde opened a huge, almost fascinated smile, throwing herself into Veronica's arms like a passionate teenager. My friend, right there in front of me, began to kiss her neck, biting her jaw and nuzzling her butt. I felt embarrassed, but not at the explicit act, for I have often seen Veronica between kisses and warm caresses with girls and boys on campus. I felt embarrassed to think of Cheryl again, perhaps in fact sick, knowing where her wife was creeping in.

"Take the next train." Veronica stuffed a bundle of dollars into her cleavage. "Meet me at the hotel, I need you. Call your brother and your cousin, they'll like my friend here." She turned to me, letting go of the woman's waist. "My friend, Fangs Fogarty. This is Elizabeth Jones."

The blonde looked at me and smiled shyly. "Betty."

"Take the next train, Betty." Veronica repeated the order.

Jughead was coming down the stairs with sodas when Elizabeth went back to work on the old Ford and Veronica rolled her eyes, probably wishing he would fall and roll downstairs and break his dirty neck. He barely approached her and she waved with the same disdain as we entered, leaving him with a stupefied expression. Guilty, I just nodded politely and followed my friend back to the coupé.

"This place is ghastly." Veronica muttered as we left the valley of the ashes and began to climb the Queensboro Bridge.

"I can't disagree."

"It's good for her to take a walk once in a while."

"And her husband? Does he know about these walks?"

"This asshole makes her work all day, you know?" She kept her eyes on the highway and squeezed the steering wheel. "Well, he doesn't force her, but he understands nothing about cars and she works alone to keep the business running while that loser says he's writing a suspense that will make him a rich man.This idiot doesn't see and feel nothing. And he doesn't deserve to."

I should've asked: _What about Cheryl? Does she deserve this?_

But I just leaned over my door, looked at my new shoes covered with mud and never did.

 

When we went to Yale, I followed Veronica to every corner of the campus as an obedient servant, she always dictated all the rules, she always gave all the cards. While I waited restlessly and uncomfortably in the middle of the apartment full of furniture and gaudy colors, while I heard groans and sighs coming from the room, I felt back at the university and its nightmares. It lasted the rest of the afternoon and I got lost watching the sun go down.

Just as I was about to sneak away without saying goodbye, both the bedroom and the apartment doors swung open, making me jump out of the chair in the blink of an eye. Veronica leaned against the door of the room with a cigarette on her lips and Betty, disheveled, in a new gold dress and diamond necklace, shouted an enthusiastic greeting. At the door of the apartment came four people, three men and one woman. Betty's brother, Chic Cooper, a thin-faced, defeated-looking fellow in an even simpler suit than mine. The woman was Midge Klump, Betty's cousin, short and smiling, already smelling of bourbon in the breath. The other two were a handsome man, Joaquin, with a shrewd smile and tight braces, and a stout man, equally handsome, but with very stern eyes and haughty stance, called Mad Dog. I thought it wouldn't be delicate to ask why the man was called Mad Dog, so I poured myself champagne and shut up.

_A curious observation: Veronica had a pearl necklace and she presented Betty with a diamond necklace, and according to my mother, she proposed to Cheryl with an expensive necklace of rubies._

My father had thick fists, so I learned to drink early in life. I rarely got drunk, allowing myself to watch the others stimulated and unconscious. When I remember that night, however, I would rather have been one of the stimulated and unconscious ones.

It was past ten. New York was roaring outside, and I, sitting on the window sill, watching the sea of merging lights and stars, listened intently to a talented and energetic saxophonist in the building across the avenue, playing alone as if giving the greatest show of his life. Midge was already stumbling on so drunk, talking nonstop about sex and dancing, sometimes mixing things up. Mad Dog was drinking in silence, watching solemnly as Joaquin and Chic danced after I'd gently refused Betty's brother's sticky, nagging touch.

I confess I kissed him before I refused.

I didn't want to be with those people. My thoughts wandered from Kevin's flattened sweet lips, then to my cousin Cheryl's possible illness, and finally they stopped at my neighbor, the one whose face I still didn't know, isolated in a castle, receiving every night interesting figures who enjoyed her magnificent fortune.

Almost midnight, when the saxophonist had retreated and everyone was dizzy in the absurd heat inside the apartment, the screams seemed to make everyone sober and attentive, their voices echoing like thunders in the bedroom door, the discussion worsening as we watched in stupefaction.

The discussion was about whether or not Betty had the right to pronounce Cheryl's name.

"Why are you making a storm of it? I don't like when you act like this!" Betty screamed at my friend's face, turning red and clenching her fists.

"Shut up, Elizabeth!" Veronica squeezed her arm. "I demand your respect!"

"Respect? Respect for whom?" She scoffed, folding her arms. "Why are you defending that depressed, dull mess that is your wife?!"

"How dare you?!" My friend, clearly out of control, held her by her arms. "Don't you dare say her name! Don't you dare insult my wife!"

"CHERYL, CHERYL, CHERYL!" This time she screamed, the veins of her neck bouncing in the fury she spat at Veronica. "I'll say how many times I want to!"

That was the part of that almost fun night that I wish I had not witnessed. Veronica frowned and narrowed her eyes dangerously as Betty screamed in anger, her hand opening in the air before she came down in a gust and hit the blonde's face, the blood dripping immediately from her nose and the tears piling up on her eyelids. Her body weakened and she fell into Chic's arms as Midge shouted offenses and curses against Veronica, pushing her repeatedly against the door while my friend seemed mortified at what she had just done. Joaquin almost tripped on the rug, bringing ice and napkins.

"I love you." She said to Betty, who was sobbing in tears, and quickly retired herself into the bedroom.

I couldn't bear it. One thing was adultery, because Veronica could, she could always do everything, the world around belonged to her, she had power, charisma, influence, she was unstoppable. But that, the realization of violence that was bleeding before our eyes, reminded me of war and blood in the trenches. I picked up my hat and left as soon as possible. As soon as I got into the elevator, however, I noticed Mad Dog on my back, also wearing his hat and buttoning his suit. He seemed sleepy and not at all impressed by what we saw in that apartment.

"Come and have dinner with us someday." He approached me for the attendant to handle the lever. "Joaquin makes an excellent fried chicken."

I smiled at him, it was the first time I heard that low, velvety voice that chaotic night. "It will be a pleasure. What wine should I bring?"

"Just beer." He shrugged, smiling a little scary, but probably it was due to the fact that he did not smile much. "Leave the luxury for people like Lady Lodge."

He mentioning the name made me dismayed again and I couldn't resist. "Does that happen too often?"

"Never happened before." He scratched the back of his neck. "But whenever they fight, it's because of Cheryl."

"And Mr. Jones, Jughead, it's never about him?"

"I don't think they even remember that poor man exists."

"And why don't they find a way to divorce their spouses to live freely?"

"Who knows? Elizabeth and Jughead were a very happy couple when they lived in San Francisco. They were ruined when Jones came to New York to take over his mother's old mechanic's shop, although Elizabeth is the talented mechanic. She can't stand him ever since. She just can't stand him."

"But... But Veronica!" I was scared for the answer. "What about Veronica?"

His sentence hurt me. "Mrs. Lodge can't stand the woman she married either."

"I can't believe it, that's a lie!" I denied it in anger. "You saw how she defended Cheryl when Betty was speaking her name. I can't believe in you."

"Accept it, my boy, for this is the truth." He insists without retreating. "Veronica Lodge is ambitious and too spoiled to give up one of them, so she doesn't allow Betty to say Cheryl's name. She wants to keep both of them as dogs on leashes... But who she truly loves, and I'm sorry to disappoint you, it's Elizabeth Jones. "

I resigned myself and stepped out of the elevator, waving at him and wandering alone through the illuminated but almost empty streets of New York. I felt small and foolish to believe that Veronica's true love was and forever would be Cheryl, even if she committed her slips. Being deceived made my stomach clutter and I thought even more of my cousin languishing in the solitude of that huge mansion. I remembered how much Cheryl, as a child, yearned for love.

Mad Dog referred to Betty and Cheryl as dogs in leashes...

I didn't know and I certainly didn't care about Elizabeth Jones.

But Cheryl wasn't a dog on a leash.

Cheryl was a precious creature damaged by everyone she'd met, maybe even by me, somehow that I wasn't aware of. When I think about it, I may have damaged it with my inertia.

When we were kids, Cheryl liked to whistle softly whenever we played hide and seek, so Jason and I would find her in her clever hiding places, we'd tickle her and Jason would say: _I got you, little bird. I got you..._

I always wanted her to be a bird and I wonder if she became one and, sometime on her freed flight, she was caught and caged again.

 

Here's the last very strange thing that happened that night already so strange. I picked up the last train and walked from the station to West Egg, ruining my new shoes once and for all, and as I rounded the corner, I could glimpse a bright cream-colored Duesenberg Rolls-Royce, silver bumpers, copper radiators extending golden tubes, leather green seats and lanterns gleaming in the dark, a distinguished Hollywood car moving away from my house. I rushed in, intrigued, and I found, in the back of my mailbox, an envelope so soft it could be velvet, with shiny edges and, right in the middle, a bronze seal displaying T.T. Knowing the sender, I almost tore the thing in my sweaty hands, opening it to read the little note.

_"I invite you to the party tomorrow night and I hope to be honored with your presence. Wear whatever you wish and bring whoever pleases you._

_Sincerely..._

_Toni Topaz. "_

Toni...

Lady Toni Topaz.

I had finally discovered her first name.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about excluding the scene where Veronica loses control and hurts Betty and I apologize if this scene bothered you. But I think it is interesting to demonstrate both the abuse of a power and to show how much an individual can distort what love really is. I promise it was the first and the last one in these parameters.
> 
> In the next chapter we will finally meet our leading lady. :)
> 
> See you guys soon!
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	3. A Lady Who's Sure All That Glitters is Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Which one exactly?" Weatherbee bent, arching his eyebrows and giving a wide-eyed grin. "The princess? The war spy?" Then he turned to me and offered the bottle again. "The smuggler? The murderer? Who knows something true and undoubted about Lady Topaz?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Here we go, Toni Topaz is on her way.
> 
> Wish you a good read. :)

 

Being invited by the host's own words made me intrigued and inexplicably happy. I wore my best suit and high-waisted pants, a quite elegant shade of egyptian blue, my second best pair of white oxford shoes, an orange bowtie, and I even redoed the ribbon of my hat, exactly the color of the bowtie. For some reason, I wanted to be very presentable for that mysterious Lady of the house next door.

As I walked shyly and curiously through the wide reddish gravel driveway, passing through the great silver gate of the main entrance, cars passed me at full speed, full of well-dressed people screaming and shaking from side to side. Some passersby also walked by, holding their hats and jewelry, running euphorically as if they couldn't miss a second. To each employee I passed, I offered my invitation to be checked, but aside from being ignored, receiving only a smile, I realized that I was the only one to do so. You see, people just popped up from every corner of New York, as if they jumped out of the drainpipes, breaking in on Lady Topaz's parties and, as rumors say, being treated like noble guests.

I felt important in having my own invitation anyway.

Delight began as a train without a brake only when I reached the front of the castle, which I hadn't yet seen because of the large rusting trees surrounding it. It was, in fact, a castle of a modern world, with towers and red flags on pointed roofs. A palace of pale pink marble and amber colored stone fully illuminated and majestic, a huge and magnificent peach-colored fountain with jets of fresh water in graceful zigzags, right in front of the porch surrounded by majestic shrubs of red flowers and a multitude of people running up stairs.

_Fangs Fogarty was Alice falling down the rabbit hole._

I let myself be dragged by the crowd and my hat went to the head of some cheeky and laughing girl, but I could not care less. I found myself immersed in an ocean of vibrant colors and many shades of exhilarating laughter. I saw movie stars, the police commissioner, a bishop, and my own Wall Street boss, all fraternizing like old friends. It was as if Lady Topaz's house was a haven where all the conventions and labels were outside, where everyone was the same, drunk, bumbling, free beasts barking and tearing the night and I felt tiny when I passed the gigantic greek columns and african paintings larger than any human being.

When I was released from the crowd in the hall of the central wing, my eyes filled with fascination. It was undoubtedly the most dazzling of the entire castle, a vast room where the floor mirrored my reflection, and the ceiling was a set of gilded vaults and baroque chandeliers glittering over us like the haven of holy writ. In the mezzanine in the background, amazing and magnificent, a coppery pipe organ being chanted with excellence by an eccentric who claimed to be descended from Beethoven himself. Leading me out, to the landing of two flights of stairs also filled with people, the outside pool area was a spectacle apart. Talented dancers performed a show on a platform fluttering under the surface of crystal clear water, and some drunks swam and laughed, trying to pull the legs of those on the ledge.

"I thought I'd find you here." A sweet voice ruffled my spine.

I turned with a glass of whiskey in my hand, though I didn't remember catching it on the tray, encountering Kevin Keller in an elegant black tuxedo and golden top hat and bowtie, a glass of champagne being voraciously emptied as soon as I smiled at him.

"Kevin." I didn't resist approaching and I dared to kiss the back of his hand. "Were you invited too?"

"Of course not." He laughed as if it was an absurd question. "No one here is invited."

"I was..." I tried to sound casually. "Who is Lady Topaz, anyway?"

A man stood between us, intimately wrapping Kevin's waist and I could not help frowning. He had a lascivious smile and a suit that should be worth the price of my car, and he also smelled of alcohol when he leaned toward me. "Lady Topaz was a spy during the war and almost died in the open sea serving the country!"

Kevin cleared his throat. "Fangs, this is Chuck Clayton. Chuck, be nice and say hello to my friend Fangs Fogarty."

"A war spy?" My eyes widened at the revelation.

"Nonsense!" A man with licked hair and a colorful polka-dot suit intervened. "Lady Topaz was never a spy in the war. She went to Oxford and she's the niece of a scottish prince...!"

"This is Reginald Mantle." Kevin introduced, rolling his eyes, trying to free himself from Chuck's hands.

"I heard she murdered a man in cold blood..." whispered a beautiful young woman who I recognized to be Valerie Brown, a Broadway star.

"She's a drink smuggler, that's right!" An older man shouted, who I recognized as the Police Inspector Minetta. "I've never seen so much alcohol in a single night..."

"She's the daughter that God conceived with the Devil in a burning cloud!" Shouted a hallucinated, half-naked redhead by the pool.

"That's Evelyn Evernever." Kevin murmured discreetly to me. "Stay away from her."

"Anyone here happen to know anything true about Lady Topaz?" I inquired in anguish, exhausted by so many voices and meaningless information.

"That I don't know" He smiled and my stress dissipated, that damn handsome man, grabbing my hand, entwining our fingers and pulling me away from his friends. "Come on, let's find out!"

And I would go wherever he took me.

 

We asked about Lady Topaz for the waiter at the bar and he replied, with a sneer, that he had never seen the hostess. We asked a group of dancers who whispered among themselves and they replied that no one has ever seen Topaz anywhere. We asked the orchestra and they said she had good taste for music, nothing more, nothing less. With my fingers entwined with Kevin's, we went through that psychedelic carnival, going from group to group, to every employee and lucid party-goer, and no one could tell where or even who or how Lady Topaz was.

Suddenly Kevin pulled me into a side room in the hall of the pipe organ and we stepped into the gloom of a gigantic, silent library. He let go of my hand, ran away, leaned under an armchair, and lit a delicate victorian lamp, his lovely face gleaming in the dark.

"It's time to confess..." He whispered mischievously, his voice rising an octave, shivering every hair on my body. "For I am Lady Topaz, my dear Fangs, do not torture yourself any more, my sweet pigeon..."

"I should have suspected!" I played, pretending to be amazed.

"Am I not what you expected, my little boy?" His eyes flashed predatory and satisfied and I thought he would jump right over me right there. Or I would jump on him. Both would suit for me.

"These books are real, but you will not find her here." A voice interrupted us, causing Kevin to run to my side with a start, our eyes rising to find an old man with owl glasses, suspended on a wooden ladder with an open book in his hands.

"Who are you?" I asked courtesy.

"My name is Waldo Weatherbee." He leafed through the book, groping the pages to attest to the truth of the existence of the work.

"What do you mean 'these books are real'?" Kevin folded his arms, probably frustrated that we were caught in Lady Topaz's library.

"I thought they were fake." Weatherbee smiled. "I thought everything here was fake, like those scenarios in theaters, but they're real, this is from thousand six hundred forty-two." He abruptly closed the thick cloth book. "But you won't find her here anyway, I've already figured it all out... Lady Topaz doesn't exist!" He hurried down the stairs, sliding to us with a bottle of bourbon, offering us to drink on the bottleneck.

"Absurd!" Kevin protested, drinking a generous sip. "I already met her, flesh and bone..."

"Which one exactly?" Weatherbee bent, arching his eyebrows and giving a wide-eyed grin. "The princess? The war spy?" Then he turned to me and offered the bottle again. "The smuggler? The murderer? Who knows something true and undoubted about her?"

"What do I care?" Kevin stole another sip, pointing to a wide window, from where we could see the party in bombardment below, the muffled sound trying to enter. "She is the Goddess of the grandest New York parties and I love great parties..."

"Let's suppose you're right." I bought for a moment the theory of the man with owl glasses. "What would all this mean?"

"There, my good boy." Weatherbee winked at me. "Now you're asking the right questions..."

"Come on." Kevin summoned me again, returning half a bottle to the man. "Take me to dance."

At that point I knew that I would give whatever he wanted from me.

 

We danced together that night for the first time since we met. I was not to boast, but considering I was in the company of a Broadway choreographer, I would say I did very well. It was a cold night, but the way Kevin pressed his body to mine, how he held my neck and passed his soft fingers into my hair, as he hugged me tightly, colliding our bodies, retreating a second later as if it had been an accident, though his smile left no room for misinterpretation, made me feel hovering on top of a volcano.

At some point in the heated dance, surrounded by hundreds of other couples dancing frantically, my suit disappeared and Kevin's tie was tied around my wrist, and he pulled me through my suspenders, our bodies crashing for the last time.

God... I was about to kiss him.

I took his face close to mine and he closed his eyes gently, like a prince. I wanted so badly to kiss him that I felt feverish, holding him tightly by the jaw, closing my own eyes to give me the ultimate sensation. Suddenly, however, we were both pulled out of our dream in the castle, Kevin being brusquely pulled away from me.

"Let a real dancer have the turn, peasant!" Mr. Clayton shouted, looking at me with disdain, Kevin giving me a guilty smile.

I was alone again, without my suit, feeling the absurd cold of the night finally reach me. Only then did I remember Lady Topaz, and again I wanted to find her, even though I'd lost my hope as I heard Kevin Keller laughing in Chuck Clayton's arms.

I thought about leaving. I fed this idea when Kevin laughed and laid his head on Mr. Clayton's neck, until suddenly I felt warmed by a navy blue frock coat of cuffs, shoulder pads, and two rows of gold buttons, probably victorian, set over my shoulders. I was in the middle of the crowd and had no idea who had sheltered me in that nice, velvety, perfumed coat, and I whirled around trying to find my savior.

"Prepare yourselves!" An elegant mustachioed man shouted from a piano by the pool that I had not yet seen. "The time is coming!"

As I listened to the eccentric man, a glass of champagne came to rest on my hands. Like the frock coat, I had no idea how it ended up there, but I drank it with desire, getting more and more confused, fearing being haunted by some ghost from the castle of the mysterious Lady Topaz.

"Your face looks familiar." A female voice, low and melodious, filled my ears. "Were you in the war?"

I tried to find the source of the voice, but people were pacing back and forth, a hurried march awaiting the spectacle that the mustachioed man announced.

"I was in the third division, in France..." I replied disoriented, looking around.

"I guessed." The voice chased me again, coming from the right side, but no one was there when I turned around in the blink of an eye. "I've been in the seventh division, in the naval troop. Is the coat covering the cold? And the champagne, is it bubbling enough?"

"Yes, yes, yes for everything...!" I tried to narrow my eyes and all I saw was an arm disappearing in the crowd of bodies with a silver ring with a scarlet emerald serpent in the center gleaming on a long finger.

"Is the party pleasing you? Are you having fun?" She sounded anxious, the owner of the voice.

"More than ever, I dare say..." I kept turning to the others, determined to find her. "But I must admit that I'm beginning to doubt Lady Topaz's existence, for I haven't found her nowhere, and no one can tell me her whereabouts... Do you happen to know her? Where are you?"

 _"Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven...!"_ Everyone began to exclaim around me under the command of the mustachioed man.

"Is that so? I'm afraid I'm being a shameful hostess..." That voice came as a murmured mumble.

_"Six! Five! Four! Three...!"_

"What?!" I screamed in the middle of the echoes, finding the owner's voice, her back to me, picking up a glass of whiskey from a tray carried exclusively for her by a rugged, frowning man in a leather coat and a bowler hat.

"You see..." She laughed, a delightful and witty laughter.

 _"Two! One...! HOOOORAY!_  " The gigantic band of people finished the countdown with a howl, a deafening chorus of joyful howls, the mustachioed man giving a thumbs-up signal to the servants, all throwing their hats up and raising their glasses.

"I am Lady Topaz, mon trésor."

I dropped my glass and it shattered before my feet in the only second of silence that night, when Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue echoed through the property, and the fireworks began to blow up as if the stars themselves were partying like we were. But to me, it was as if the stars were greeting the person I longed to meet. The fireworks went up and down like an arc of color and glamor around her and she smiled at me.

She was wearing a tight white shirt in a bold neckline, wide pants of purple linen over her delicate bare feet, her black suspenders were thin, with even finer purple edges. Her sleeves were bent, one hand in the pocket of her pants and the other with the ring I saw before, the silver ring with the scarlet emerald serpent in the center, holding the whiskey glass. Beautiful and divine, her coppery skin gleamed beneath the bright, full moon of that summer, as did her almond outlined eyes, and her long curly hair fluttered in the night wind, mingled with brown and pink, unparalleled, but strangely charming.

But the real impact, what really made me topple that glass, was, actually, her smile. It was an alluring, gorgeous smile, but it was not as simple as most smiles, not when I contemplated it in the face of all that extravagance surrounding us, burdening around us. It was a genuine, fascinating smile, a smile that says she loves and believes in you exactly the way you want to be loved and believed. A dreamy, floating smile, causing me there, basking in front of her, astonishment and wonder in the same proportion.

"Oh, please forgive me!" I didn't know if I was apologizing for the glass or for not knowing before who I was talking to. "Lady Topaz, I didn't mean to offend you...!"

"You didn't." She kept her voice mild despite the shouting around us, looking up for a moment at the fireworks that seemed to explode because of her.

She was small in stature, but she exuded grandeur.

"You put this coat on me?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Yes. It's my favorite coat." She looked at me again and smiled that tremendous smile. "It suits you, mon trésor. It gives you a fine look."

I hadn't yet freed myself from my blasted state and just nodded in silent thanks, which she seems to have understood very well, because she smiled again, but this time a beautiful smile of absolute understanding, an understanding I have never seen in the smile of any other person and that I would never see again. And the truth is that I couldn't regain my senses because I never expected someone like her. I tought I would find an embittered old lady who didn't attend her own parties and was somewhere strategic, peering into a joyous happiness and hubbub that didn't belong to her.

Toni Topaz, in front of me at that moment, was not only young, but radiant, monumental, prodigious. If I had to bet on any of the faces that all those people attributed to her, I would choose the Princess, the scottish's niece, and only lacked her a golden crown to establish her as the royal sovereign of that kingdom of wonders.

_Nobility._

I found the ideal word.

She had nobility within her eyes.

The frowning man who handed the whiskey to her approached again from the crowd and leaned over her shoulder, warning of an urgent call from Washington, just as Kevin resurfaced beside me, curious, sweaty and smiling.

"I'd better give you your precious coat and look for my jacket before some drunken man turns it into dishcloth." I tried to use my good humor to fix my embarrassment.

"Keep it." Her voice sounded commanding, but soft. "It's a pleasure to have you here, Mr. Keller. And you too, Mr. Fogarty." She smiled at me again magnificently. "Whatever you need or want, mon trésor, just a word and you will receive it. Now forgive me, but I need to take care of business. I'll be back later. "

She set out on an elegant walk, the colors rippling around her, the path opening for her to cross as though, although no one there really knew her, only her presence inspired reverence, the frowning man following her in his leather coat and his bowler hat.

"Who is she?" I asked still stunned.

"She is Lady Topaz."

"But who is Lady Topaz? Where did she come from? What does she work with?"

"These are many questions." He grinned at me, touching my face. "She once told me she went to Oxford, but I don't believe her."

"Why wouldn't you believe her? She hasn't, after all, a European uncle?"

"I don't know, honey." He shrugged, as if he wanted to let it go. “But if there's something I believe in, is that I owe you a kiss…"

Even before we could get carried away by the romantic atmosphere that was set in the aftermath of the fireworks, a melancholy jazz echoing in our ears, the frowning man came back, taking off his bowler hat to briefly revere us.

"Please excuse me." He cleared his throat. "Mr. Keller, Lady Topaz would like to speak to you privately."

"Me?" Kevin let out an incredulous, confused laugh.

"Please, sir." He pointed the way, pointing upwards, where the three of us glimpsed the butler coming out with the phone and Lady Topaz watching us with that uneven smile as if this specifically beckoned to us, though her eyes went through all drunken dancing with utter satisfaction.

I just realized that Kevin was holding my hand when he let go and followed the frowning man, leaving a cold, sad space between my rough fingers.

In the loneliness of having no one else known around me and no disposition in me to put up with Kevin's rich friends without him to be worth it, I walked quietly across the castle of Lady Topaz. A glass of scented whiskey and her coat, her favorite coat, which she'd personally put on my shoulders, kept me so warm that I almost felt there was another presence with me, I didn't feel so alone.

I walked through her beach for the first time. I could no longer hear the jazz as the waves broke with the tide and the wind danced around me, and the iridescence of shells gleaming on the sand that filled my shoes looked much like a separate paradise in which I accidentally stumbled. I was overwhelmed and thoughtful about Toni Topaz and all the rumors about her, but at the same time I was delighted and truly happy to finally meet her. When the dose of whiskey was gone, I went into the vast gardens and almost wanted to lie in the immensity of beautiful flowers and shrubs and their stunning colors. I followed, with the scent of the flowers on my clothes, into the castle again, wishing to see a little more of its magnanimous architecture. One room was more beautiful than the other, and though they did not compare to the hall in the central wing of the pipe organ, they filled my eyes and made my spine tingled.

All the people started leaving the party around three at dawn and I found myself lying awkwardly in an armchair in the huge corridor that divided the castle's wings, a glass of empty champagne in my hands and my hat mysteriously back to my head. I felt exhausted and dizzy, but I wanted to say goodbye to Toni Topaz, unlike all the others, who vanished without even a greeting, running to their cars like criminal rats. I wanted to thank her for the invitation, for the coat, for the delight.

I think I fell asleep for a few minutes when Beethoven's descendant intoned a minor play by Chopin, but I was soon awakened when some random couples began to argue around me about leaving or staying a little longer. Which was quite relieving, because Kevin came in strides as soon as I got up and I wiped a trail of drool off my chin.

"Fangs!" He rushed to me with enthusiasm, holding my face with his soft hands. "It's amazing, everything makes sense now, everything...!" He leaned over me and the breath of champagne and chocolate, which he must have savored while he was with Lady Topaz, clouding my senses.

"What makes sense?" I laughed, stunned, holding his arms so he wouldn't let me go.

"Everything!" He exclaimed cheerfully. "Everything finally fits! It's so exciting!"

"You're the one who is not making any sense now!" I just kept laughing because I had never seen him so excited and I fell in love with this joy in him.

"There you are!" Chuck appeared on the main stairs beside Reginald, rushing to pull Kevin by his arm. "Come on, we have to go!"

"Oh, Fangs, if I could tell you..." He was still laughing, being dragged by the two drunken men.

"Tell me! What makes sense?" I ran after them like a mischievous boy, stumbling on the marble steps where other people waited for their cars.

Chuck and Reginald shoved him into the shiny black convertible, ordering the driver to go. "I swore not to tell, my dear Fangs, I swore to her!" He pretended mysterious and stern, but he didn't stop laughing at me. "Come to tea with me tomorrow afternoon! I'm in the phone book!" And at last he hung in the door of the car and threw me kisses and more kisses with his hands. Gravel dust spread around me and Kevin disappeared into that cloud, carried by those two men whom I thought unpleasant. I waved, even though he couldn't see, and I almost closed my fingers in the air as if I could catch his kisses.

"I'm sorry to keep him away from you for the night, mon trésor." There was the melodious and sincerely sorry voice from the porch above, Lady Topaz with her hands in her pockets, her dreamy eyes traversing the vast open space from which all those people who enjoyed her party, but who didn't even know or greet her, left hurriedly.

"I'll see him tomorrow." I smiled at my positive thinking.

"Tomorrow will be a sunny day." She looked up at the sky, as if she could actually predict the weather, and then she looked back at me with her gorgeous smile. "Do you like sunny days, mon trésor?"

"This summer I'm loving them." I confessed, still enchanted, somewhat perplexed by the sensation that her presence caused me, as if I were speaking to the best living person in the world.

"Have lunch with me tomorrow." It didn't sound like a request, nor did it sound like an order. "I'll leave you in town in time for your tea."

I remember thinking about refusing, I still felt very embarrassed by my lack of knowledge earlier, but there was again something about how she looked and smiled at you and I found myself a prisoner of that charm full of mysteries and surprises.

"Tomorrow then." I nodded.

"Good night, mon trésor." She nodded back. "You're always welcome, as long as you wish to come."

"Good night, Lady ..."

"Toni." She laughed graciously, the frowning man's hand resting on her shoulder to signal another call. "You can call me Toni."

I wasn't sure what floated in my head for the rest of the dawn between meeting Lady Topaz and having tea with Kevin later, but I lay awake on my couch, right by the window, where I could watch the sun rising behind the tower of Toni's castle, and suddenly New York seemed to me the most magical place in the whole world.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost there! What did you think of Toni? 
> 
> Someone drew my attention to this and I would like to clarify about: We know a black woman wouldn't be among the rich and popular in the 1920s, the same for any non-white person, as much as homosexual couples weren't allowed at that time and women didn't go to war as well. I just wish we could imagine a different world, where those daily struggles, prejudice and phobias, that are always in our minds could be put aside and we could delve into the emotions of individuals in their purest form. I hope you understand and dive with me.
> 
> See you guys soon. :)
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	4. Sweet November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑎𝑙𝑙, 𝐾𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑛, 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚! 
> 
> 𝑇𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝐶ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑! 
> 
> 𝑆𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑡: 𝐶ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑠!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! One more step.
> 
> Wish you a good read. :)

 

Next day I was preparing to leave the house and walk to the castle, after bathing in perfume, polishing my shoes and wearing my best shirt and beret, since it was too hot to wear a suit, when a horn echoed from the outside and I leaned out the window to find the shiny-colored Duesenberg Rolls-Royce parked in front of my garden. I hurried out, I was anxious to spend time with Lady Topaz and find out if any of the rumors about her were true.

She was casually reclining with one arm over the door, standing, pacing a slow beat of a brass cane with a ruby serpent on the top of it against the ground. This time her pants were tight, white as paper, a baby blue shirt matching her shoes, and that elusive smile glittering at me under the sun that she claimed would shine on us that day. Not surprisingly, her smile also seemed like a language, a new language, because she only bowed to me briefly, smiling, and got into the car, waiting for me without saying a word.

We started driving down the beach in the estuary and she kept her eyes on the road, looking thoughtful. I had a million questions, and at the same time, I had none at all.

"Tell me, mon trésor." Toni sighed. "What's your opinion about me?"

"I..." Caught by surprise, I was fumbling in the words, unable to form a sentence before such a solemn question.

"There are rumors all over Long Island about me." She interrupted my poor, failed attempt, and I was even more surprised that she was aware of those damn rumors. "I don't want you to keep the wrong impression of who I really am, so I brought you with me to tell you the truth. I was born in the Midwest and I come from people with lots of money. I was raised by my grandfather and never met my parents. After the war I went to Oxford. And after that I was lucky enough to make a lot more money. And I don't have a scottish uncle."

I wanted to ask how she built her fortune, but I did not dare interrupt.

"I thought I would die and I wished to die the whole time in the war, but luck may favor the desperate, mon trésor. I was a soldier, then first lieutenant, then major, with excellent compliments, including a medal of honor for the battle of Montenegro, on the Adriatic Sea." She reached into her trouser pocket and took out the small, not-so-shiny medal that specifically featured _Major Topaz: For Valour Extraordinary_. Then she handed me a picture of her under the arch of the Quadrangle of the Trinity, in Oxford, surrounded by four men, all in coats bearing the insignia of the british university.

It was all true. I felt ashamed for doubting her, even briefly.

"Why are you explaining all this to me, Lady Topaz?"

"Toni." She smiled and disarmed me again. "I have a request to make to you today, mon trésor, a request that will be forwarded by Mr. Keller in your tea this afternoon. I thought it would be fair to tell you my story before doing so."

We silenced suddenly. I was puzzled, a little annoyed by the mysteries that probed me, and wanted to know what part Kevin had in that mystery, probably what he swore he couldn't tell me the night before. Then we crossed, Lady Topaz and I, the border between West and East Egg, the valley of ashes, and the Queensboro bridge to New York. A motorcycle policeman even stopped us for speeding, but he apologized and disappeared the minute he recognized the driver.

"I paid the commissary a favor and we exchange christmas cards every year since then." She clarified without delay and I remembered seeing, in fact, the commissary and his wife at her party.

We walked into a discreet restaurant, something like a stylized, charming, illuminated basement, away from the curious on the street. Round tables spread out in space and a jazz group sounded slow on the small stage. Skilled waiters whirled the trays with their orders, and the smoke of the cigarettes made fog all around us.

"Mr. Fogarty." She led me to a table in the corner. "Allow me to introduce you to a good friend, Forsythe Pendleton II. FP, if you prefer."

A man in a suit and black tophat, a ruby serpent on the lapel just like Toni's cane, lifted his head and flashed us his yellow smile. He was old, sturdy, his eyes wide and large like ghostly lanterns, chewing tobacco with a big beer mug in his hands.

"Topaz." He waved. "Mr. Fogarty."

"It's a pleasure, sir."

"Cut the formalities, my boy." He roared. "The money is in the suitcase."

"Money?" I frowned.

"Oh, no, FP, no." Toni shook her head. "This is not the man."

"It isn't?" He looked disappointed.

"This is a friend, Fangs Fogarty." She nodded, gently pulling the chair so I sat down, sitting down beside me. "He's a Wall Street gentleman."

"A bright future, Mr. Fogarty." FP toasted. "At least until it's broken."

I didn't understand what he said, but I couldn't question it. The waiter deposited martini for me and Toni and a bowl of meat stew with potatoes for FP, who left the conversation and began to devour it, ignoring us for a moment.

"Mon trésor." Toni called me discreetly. "Did I bother you today on our way here when I mentioned the request I want to make to you?"

She smiled at me and I tried at all costs not to let myself consume.

"I don't like half conversations." I confessed. "I don't understand why you can't tell me right away what this is about and why I need to hear it from Kevin."

"Half conversations for the benefit of whole truths, mon trésor, I promise. Mr. Keller would never take part in anything unscrupulous, as you may know."

Before I could contest, she glanced at the clock behind the counter, apologized and left the table hurriedly, leaving me confused and a little frustrated.

"She needs a phone call, but it will be brief, young man, rest easy." FP smiled, wiping his mouth and beard with a napkin. "A distinctly splendid Lady, don't you think? She is not only courteous and rich, but also so beautiful..."

"She is." I swallowed my martini, haunted by those huge eyes.

"She went to Oxford, did you know that? One of the biggest universities in the world..."

"I've heard of it. Have you known her in a long time?"

"Known her in a long time?" He laughed, his yellow teeth glowing with sauce. "I made her!"

Lady Topaz came back to the table. with more martini, that fabulous smile on her face. "Are you two getting along? Be careful, mon trésor, soon FP will want to drag you into the most unusual alleys of New York and its stygian business..."

"This lunch was delicious." FP drank the rest of the beer and licked his lips. "But I must leave now, you young people stay there and have fun."

"I'll pay the bill." Toni intervened as he pulled the wallet from his suit. "We'll meet soon, FP."

"Farewell, my children. It was my pleasure, Mr. Fogarty."

As soon as he left, I turned curiously at her. "Who is this man, anyway? What does he do? Is he an actor?"

"An actor?" She frowned, but continued to smile. "Why would he be an actor? No, mon trésor. He's a businessman, of many business, indeed. He's very clever, an old wolf in sheep's clothing. But a good man. Always remember that, mon trésor. A good man."

"What is it that you call me, 'mon trésor'?" I forgot about FP and asked shyly. I've never been very good at french, even after the war.

But suddenly Toni stiffened, pressing the ruby serpent on the brass cane, abandoning the martini and sighing deeply, not looking at me. "Someone used to call me that, and I used to love it. It means 'my treasure'. I thought it would suit you, who is someone precious."

I could only nod, too flattered to speak.

The rest of the lunch turned into something else, very surprising and hearty. Toni was talking to people, she invited them to sit with us and tell their stories, she paid for drinks and appetizers, and handed a bundle of dollars, which I could hardly count, to Melody Valentine, the woman who led the jazz group. She ordered beer and toasted to have met me, raising her gracious grave voice so that everyone knew, making me feel illustrious. I had never felt illustrious, not even when my sergeant in the war had congratulated me for rescuing his dog.

Later I notice, in the other corner of the restaurant, the sturdy, frowning man in the leather coat and bowler hat, looking discreetly at us as he exhaled smoke from a thick cigar. Toni had just returned to the table after paying a laborer's lunch that the clerk was scolding for forgetting his wallet in the valley of ashes.

"He follows you everywhere." My curiosity got the better of me and I pointed as discreetly as possible to the man watching us. "Is he your boyfriend?"

She narrowed her eyes at me provocatively. "He's someone I can trust and trust is priceless. Do you have someone to trust, mon trésor?"

I swear I thought Kevin first, but it was absurd, I barely knew him. I thought of Ronnie, but even her wife couldn't trust her to that point. I confess that I thought lovingly of Cheryl, but my beautiful cousin lived steeped in her melancholy under a facade of charm and sweetness, and all we had for the other was caring and childhood memories.

And then, as I watched Toni Topaz drinking beer among the workmen as if drinking champagne with kings, laughing with them as if fraternizing with sultans, I felt something so honest and pure emanating from her to me, some kind of powerful energy around her, and suddenly she was the most genuine person in the world again, in spite of all my suspicions about the story of her life and the request that she intends to make me.

Suddenly I was overwhelmed by the feeling that I fully trusted Toni Topaz.

"I'm not sure about this, Toni."

She smiled at me with the purity of the kingdom of heaven and took a sip of her beer. "It's alright with it, mon trésor."

When the silence returned between us, this time comfortable and gentle, a noisy group entered the restaurant and I recognized them as Betty, Joaquin, Mad Dog, Chic, Midge and Veronica leading them, a possessive arm on Betty's waist, who smiled for her with all the possible love in the world. I was excited to not feel so alone anymore, to have someone to call a friend who had not been introduced by Veronica, so I got up quickly to greet them and invite them to meet that extraordinary figure who was with me.

"Look, the beautiful Fogarty!" Midge blinked lustfully, making me blush.

"Fangs!" Veronica smiled widely at me. "What are you doing so far from home, my boy?"

"A great coincidence, my friend." I greeted everyone with a handshake, not hiding my enthusiasm.

"You're here all alone?"

"I'm not, and now I'm glad you're here to know her! I'd like to introduce you to my friend, T..."

But when I turned to present her, to my surprise, Toni had disappeared, leaving only the bill paid and a mug filled with beer at our table.

 

I left the restaurant frustrated and stunned, escaping from the anxious clutches of the brother and cousin of Elizabeth Jones. I couldn't understand why Toni had left me like a fool, alone there, when we were having so much fun, when I was finally getting to know her. It didn't seem to be her character, to leave a friend without a clue to her whereabouts. I confirmed my frustration at not finding the big yellow car on the street.

I walked unhappily toward Times Square, hoping a tea with Kevin would soothe my troubled mind. It would soon be night, and all the lights of New York lit bright and colorful. But as I approached, as I climbed onto the terrace and saw him in the corner, smoking elegantly, handsome and snobby in the green sweater of his eye color, I suddenly felt enraged with him as much as I was with Toni.

"What kind of game are you and Topaz playing with me?" I scolded as soon as I got to the table, pushing away the waiter who tried to stop me from going to him.

"What are you talking about?" Kevin immediately took offense, standing up, his thigh banging on the table and shaking the porcelain.

"This mystery, the lunch, the request, Toni disappearing completely! What are you two up to?"

"Lower your voice." He frowned. "You are drawing unwanted and unnecessary attention to us." And then he smiled, trying to conquer me.

"Listen, I'm not going to fall for your charm, Kevin Keller. I demand to know what you two..."

"Fangs!" He growled, annoyed. I bet he wasn't used to being denied. "Lady Topaz wants you to invite Cheryl to tea!"

Everything around me was silenced at that moment. Kevin snorted and sat down, lighting the cigarette again, motioning for the waiter to leave. I dropped into the chair, completely speechless.

"Cheryl... My cousin... And Lady Topaz? Does this have to do with what Toni and you talked about at the party?"

"Yes, my innocent little pigeon, that's the request I should tell you about." He smiled again. "But for this, before I need to tell you about a love story that I have somehow seen happen with my own eyes, I just wasn't aware that it would take us to this moment here and now."

"A love story about Topaz?" I leaned over him on the table as if we were sharing secrets.

He stared at my lips and licked his and for a second I thought he was going to kiss me.

"No, you little fool." The fresh breath that came with his laughter tickled my face and he drew closer still, looking around a little frightened. "A love story about Cheryl Blossom..."

 

He began to narrate and I dove into the tea so my nerves wouldn't explode.

 

"I saw her for the first time in Louisville, in October of nineteen-seventeen. My father had bought shoes imported from our home, England, for my first play, and I was walking in the field of the Blossom family because Cheryl and I studied at the same university and our parents became good friends. She was a year older than me, though, as you know. The Blossom family had the most majestic lawn, filled with secret gardens and fruit trees and I loved to walk around. That's when I saw Cheryl in her red convertible, parked under the shade of a large oak tree, and I wasn't surprised at first, she loved driving the car that belonged to her brother by herself, as you must know too. But there was someone beside her, a soldier I had never seen before, and army officers used to lined up to court Cheryl. That one was new..."

_Toni_

I couldn't believe it.

Cheryl and Toni have known each other for more than five years...?

"Topaz was the soldier's name. She was charming and she looked at Cheryl as anyone wishes to be looked at by someone, even if only for once in a lifetime. There was a devotion there that made me jealous and confused. I admired Cheryl though, she was my friend and I was happy that that look was being given to her as a rare treasure... She called me and asked me to advise that she would later arrive at the Red Cross hospital to help with the war dressings, a work she always did, even with Penelope disapproving. And the soldier continued to look at her as if there was no one else in the world..."

I wasn't liking the course of the story and stole one of his cigarettes to appease my distress.

"This incident, as I said, was in nineteen-seventeen. Since then I set out to improve my studies in Italy and returned almost a year later, after receiving numerous letters from Cheryl, cold letters, inexpressive letters, but also letters from others of my friends who said strange things about her, like one of my cousins who said she heard a rumble in the Blossom house, Cheryl trying to escape with a suitcase to go to the port on the coast in Georgia to say goodbye to a supposed soldier who was going to war in Europe, but she was stopped and beaten by Penelope and Clifford Blossom."

I was in the war at the time, far from my cousin. I never knew my uncles beat her.

"I learned later that her parents tried to send her to countless dates with nobles and merchants and famous players, and that she ruined each of these dates and was severely punished, closing up more and more inside herself. When I returned, however, in the next fall, I was surprised to discover that she was engaged to the heiress Lodge, and apparently she was very happy. When I met her, she told me that Veronica had given her a ruby necklace valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars as a wedding present."

The necklace of rubies... I had seen it before.

"The wedding was colossal. Hundreds of guests, a whole hotel reserved for the party, the cathedral crowded with rich and curious people. I was their godfather and I stayed with Cheryl during all the preparations. But one day before the ceremony, when she did not show up for the last proof of the dress before the bridal dinner, I found her in Jason's dusty room with an empty bottle of bourbon, completely drunk, clutching a crumpled, tear-stained letter in her hands."

_I've never been drunk, my dear Kevin! Congratulate me! I feel like floating...!_

"I had never seen her in that state and I was terrified."

_You must tell them all, Kevin, tell them! Tell them Cheryl has changed her mind! Say it: Cheryl has changed her mind, you bastards!_

"She crawled on the bed like she was burning, scratching violently at her neck and pulling off the necklace of rubies, the shiny stones flying and rolling across the floor. She began to cry so compulsively that I didn't dare approach. I ran for Penelope because I didn't know what to do, I found her with Hermione, Veronica's mother, and they both dragged Cheryl into the tub, dipping her in hot water, the rest of the letter undoing into her hands. I put some salts in the tub to calm her while Hermione screamed that this could become a scandal and Penelope furiously repaired the rubies necklace. And then..."

He sighed as if he were about to tell the most terrible lament of his life.

"The next day, Cheryl Blossom married Veronica Lodge and left for a long honeymoon in the South Seas. I had never seen her so happy after the mysterious soldier. When they returned, I met her in Santa Barbara and she still seemed the happiest of wives, even shortly after Veronica appeared in the papers in a scandal after getting into a car accident where she was accompanied by a maid from her father's hotel, a girl named Heather. They adopted Josephine and spent some time in France, away from the gossip. Then they finally came back and lived in Chicago, and Cheryl never lost her composure, despite other small scandals that came up..."

I should have known.

My friend Veronica's betrayals began early.

"And as you know, she heard the name Topaz just a few weeks ago when you first came to the East Egg. Do you remember?"

"I remember." I sighed. "What a strange coincidence."

"It was no coincidence, my dear Fangs." He finally looked less stern, relaxing in his chair and taking a sip of his cold tea. "Lady Topaz bought that property because she knew Cheryl was living on the other side of the bay. It was because of her. And now she wants to know if you would invite Cheryl to tea."

The request was modest and it filled my heart with affection for Toni.

"Why so much mystery to such a simple request?"

"She looked very frightened." He pondered, touching my hand on the table. "She didn't want to offend you or make it look like she wanted to use you. She's a humble person under the facade of money and glamor, as you see..."

"And why didn't she ask you, who is also Cheryl's friend?"

"You're her neighbor and she wants Cheryl to meet her castle. She started off with those absurd parties in the hope that Cheryl would one day appear, as does all of Long Island, but she never showed up. Cheryl doesn't go out much, as you know... She asked for Cheryl in each of these parties, without ever succeeding until she met us. When I told her that you were Veronica's close friend, I thought she would drop the idea, but I think she went too far to back down now."

We left the building and walked to the taxi in Times Square, sitting in the silence of the crossing to Long Island, Kevin's head on my shoulder. I felt divided as I thought about the request. Despite Veronica's doubtful character, she was still my dear friend. "I don't know what to say..."

"Say you will do it." He laughed as if it were obvious. "Cheryl deserves to have some joy in her life."

"Does she want to meet Lady Topaz?"

"Oh no, my little pigeon, she can't know. You must invite her to the tea, Lady Topaz doesn't want her to find out until she sees her with her own eyes."

I kept silence, because I didn't know what to say. He sighed as if he knew the doubts that probed my thoughts, and simply fell silent with me, kissing my cheek and letting himself rest on my shoulder.

 

When I said goodbye to Kevin, still lost in doubt, walking home, I was surprised at Lady Topaz near my garden, watching the great moonlight above, her hands tight in her pockets, her back to me. I remembered her abandonment, but I was no longer angry. I felt cheerful the minute I saw her. She had this effect on me and I knew I was about to grant a request to a woman I barely knew, but that I felt that I had known forever.

"Lady Topaz?" I called from a distance.

"Toni." She turned to me and smiled correcting me. "I'm sorry for what I did in the restaurant, mon trésor. I'm ashamed."

"I can imagine why you did it." I was honest in my assumptions. Veronica Lodge was there. Veronica, Cheryl's wife.

"Let me make it up to you. We can go to the city, to the movies, or Broadway, my car is right there."

"It's been a long day, but I appreciate the offer."

"Are you sure?" She looked afflicted and shy for the first time, but still smiled as if we shared a special moment. "We can use the pool, I haven't been able to enjoy it since the summer began..."

"I'm really grateful, but I must sleep. Maybe another day?"

"Certainly, mon trésor." She nodded in defeat. "You must rest. Have a good night."

As she slowly walked away, banging her cane on the ground, I knew what I wanted and what I would do with all my heart.

"Is tomorrow afternoon a good time for you?"

"What?" She turned quickly, almost relieved.

"For the tea." I couldn't help but smile.

"If this is a good time for you." She smiled and pressed her hands on her cane. "Any time that's truly ideal for you it will be perfect for me."

"Tomorrow afternoon, then."

"Well..." She cleared her throat. "Look, you don't make much money, do you, mon trésor? I'm sorry to intrude."

"Oh..." I frowned. "Not much, not yet."

"Well, listen, I've got a little business starting out on Coney Island and I was thinking maybe you could join in. You're a businessman, you deal with numbers and documents, you could make good money if..."

"Toni." Her anxiety made me laugh when I understood what it was about. "It's a favor. I'm doing you a favor."

"A favor..."

"Because we're friends."

"Friends..."

She seemed positively surprised by both of these statements. Her splendid smile remained intact, but there was something in the depths of her noble eyes, something between anguish and unbelief, and I wondered if anyone in her life had ever done her a favor or called her a friend.

"Yes." I reaffirmed. "Friends."

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, opening them again, already free of any kind of pain or suspicion. "Good night, mon trésor, mon ami Fangs."

'Mon ami' I could understand.

 _My friend Fangs_.

 

That same night I called to invite my cousin to tea.

"Don't bring Ronnie."

_"Pardon?"_

"Don't bring Veronica." I emphasized.

"Oh... Who's Veronica?"

I knew she was smiling on the other side, playing innocent.

I just hoped she would continue to smile when she found out what that tea was about.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's ready for tea?
> 
> Se you guys soon. :)
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	5. Young and Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I almost regretted having broken that moment that they shared. I had disappeared with the tea and the cakes and the flowers, the rain had hushed, the world had crumbled to them, and five years seemed like an eternity far from each other. And I, who never in my life had witnessed a reunion like that, felt like a knight touching the holy grail...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. How about a little romance? :) 
> 
>  
> 
> Wish you a good read. :)

 

I woke up with sounds of many footsteps, beats and echoes from outside my window, running into my robe and underpants, almost stumbling on the lobby rug. My garden was full of servants, gardeners, florists, all working nonstop to turn those ruins of mudd into a lovely garden of colors and fresh grass. I didn't immediately understand why Toni would do all that for a girl she hadn't seen in nearly five years, but I dared not detain the dedicated workers and the garden was getting really beautiful.

At dusk it started to rain and still the garden remained beautiful. I parted cherry tea, my cousin's favorite, and I bought some little cakes that smelled very strange, although I was sure she wouldn't be interested in tea or cakes when she discovered my surprise. As the hour approached, I asked myself several times if I was not making a tremendous mistake that would make me lose my cousin forever.

With forty-five minutes left for the combined hour, a line of men in tuxedos knocked on my door, bringing magnificent arrangements of flowers, french pastries and a three-tier red velvet cake, behind them coming Toni Topaz in cream-colored tight trousers and pink oxford shoes, a coral shirt under a darker brocade waistcoat and a white suit floating on her shoulders, afflicted eyes, anxious movements, hurrying in and sitting silently in an armchair as if she was about to collapse in my living room.

"The rain must stop at the right time." She murmured without interest, tapping her cane on her lap, legs crossed in an anguished compass. "I saw the news."

"I bet it will." I nodded, lining up the lemon slices on the tray.

We sat together in a bizarre silence for forty-three minutes, when suddenly she jumped up. "She will not come, she must know, I'm a fool!"

"Hey, hey, wait!" I took her by the shoulders. "It's still two minutes to go, she must be on her way."

"This rain must have made her give up."

"Wait a little longer, I insist..."

Before she could object, a horn sounded outside, the sound muffled by the torrential rain. I saw panic and fascination in her eyes, ceasing to comfort her to open the door before she became even more anxious. I jumped down the stone path, opening the umbrella to the car door.

There she was. She was completely different from the last time I'd glimpsed her crying and cowering in her mansion in East Egg. She was wearing a blanched almond colored dress with long sleeves and brass buttons, no ruby necklace in sight, and her white gloves were soft as her skin. The shoes shone against the rustic stone as she slid gracefully down the umbrella, encircling my arm, her red hair floating around her face, which opened in a provocative smile.

"So this is where you hide, my dear? Why did you dismiss Ronnie?" She laughed. "Are you in love with me?"

"I've always been." I blinked at her. "Tell your driver I'll take you home."

She conveyed my directions and I led her inside, my heart racing like never before, not even when I was about to kiss Kevin Keller at Lady Topaz's party. Cheryl entered the foyer, gingerly taking off her gloves, folding the corner of the living room, and I simply petrified myself against the door, expecting her to scream or faint or whatever.

"Oh, my lovely Fangs!" She exclaimed. "Did you prepare all of this for me?"

I swallowed and hurried to reach her, but when I entered the living room there was only Cheryl, the table of pastries and cakes, the flowers and the porch door open.

"I..." I lost my words, confused.

"You must be truly in love with me." She teased again.

"This is... strange. Very strange."

"Is everything alright, dear cousin?"

I couldn't try to explain myself, for the bell began to ring incessantly. I asked her to excuse me and settle down and I went back to the door, opening it without delay, aware of who I would find. Toni Topaz, leaning on her cane, drenched from head to toe, lips trembling with anxiety and cold.

"What do you think you're doing?" I scolded between my  teeth.

She didn't respond, just took a deep breath and invaded my lobby, dripping everywhere, twisting her long hair before pulling on her suit to straighten up and enter the living room once and for all, and I followed her by dragging a cloth with the foot to not ruin the hardwood floor. Just as I reached the entrance of the room, Cheryl, who was watching the rain through the glass door of the balcony, turned to us. That was the last moment Toni's eyes met hers and I could feel a cosmic gale passing through us all, Cheryl's red lips parted, cheeks turning red, Toni's hands trembling, the cane falling to the ground.

There was a lonely tear running down Cheryl's face the next moment and I realized I had never seen such commotion in her eyes. She looked shocked, but a gleam radiated from her eyes to Toni, something new and spectacular, something pure and inexhaustible. She never looked at anyone like that. I know she didn't. She walked shakily to Toni, using her velvet gloves to gently brush her face, wiping away the thick drops of rain, pushing away the strands of pink hair, Toni's eyes closing at the touch, as if she were about to succumb to the memory revived.

Toni leaned into the touch of Cheryl's bare hand on her face while Cheryl's other hand barely held the gloves, my cousin allowing more tears to escape from her eyes, lips still half open and not a single sound echoing from it. And suddenly, with all her delicacy, Cheryl stepped away, clutching the gloves in her hands against her own chest, the tip of the nose red from crying.

"I am certainly glad to see you again." Cheryl whispered.

"I..." Toni nodded, head still bowed. "I'm certainly glad to see you again as well."

I almost regretted having broken that moment that they shared. I had disappeared with the tea and the cakes and the flowers, the rain had hushed, the world had crumbled to them, and five years seemed like an eternity far from each other. And I, who never in my life had witnessed a reunion like that, felt like a knight touching the holy grail.

"So..." I cleared my throat. "Tea?"

The spell was ruined and Cheryl pulled away abruptly, sitting in an armchair and nodding at me. I smiled at her, I felt compassion, but I felt joy as well, because the smile she gave me was also different from the usual, honest and freed.

"Yes, please, mon trésor." Toni sat down as well, and I didn't mind her wetting the chair. I was truly pleased.

"We know each other." Cheryl muttered to me, feeling the need to explain herself. "We didn't see each other for a long time..."

"Five years next november."

Their eyes met as I poured the tea and I realized, fascinated, that Toni was looking at her in a completely different way as she looked at me and the moon and the parties at her castle. There was not only nobility and delight, it was something else, something I didn't know how to name, though was on the tip of my tongue, a single word.

Though I served the tea, they couldn't stop bumping into each other's eyes, perhaps sharing a thousand secrets about which I would never know. I felt embarrassed, like an intruder in my own house, and I soon picked up a pack of cigarettes and my umbrella.

"Where are you going?" Toni asked in alarm.

"I'll be right back."

"Excuse me, I need to talk to you before you go. Excuse us for a moment, Mrs. Blo... Lodge."

When we got to the lobby, I swore I was dealing with a child in distress because Toni pushed me against the door, held it tight in my arms and leaned to whisper afflicted.

"I made a mistake, mon trésor. I'm making a fool of myself and she must hate me."

"Stop this." I growled back. "Toni, you're just embarrassed. Cheryl is embarrassed too."

"Cheryl is embarrassed?" Her expressions changed, as if she was relieved.

"Of course she is, my friend!"

"Lower your voice." She scrunched up between her teeth.

"You're going to be a fool if you don't go back there and talk to her. She's there alone, Toni..."

I think that when I said this I wasn't just referring to that moment in itself, but unconsciously to a state in which my cousin had been for a long time, perhaps ever since, an inescapable solitude around her that seems to have disarmed at the moment when she saw Toni Topaz in my living room, like the awakening of a butterfly.

Or maybe, for me, a _bird_.

Toni became solemn, adjusted the suit on her body and nodded to me, convincing herself of what she needed and wanted to do for five years. I finally got out and I sheltered under a large tree on the side of her property, watching the rain, fantasizing to myself what the two of them should be talking about.

Suddenly I felt quite conscious of everything. The story of the lost love that Kevin told me. The afternoon tea. Toni's castle and across the bay to Cheryl's mansion with the red light flashing on the pier. The unknown words of Toni in that letter. I stared at that lovely garden Toni designed simply to get Cheryl for tea, and the word I was looking for broke out inside me like one of those dazzling flowers blooming.

_Love._

When the rain stopped, I could hear the murmur of voices coming from inside the house and decided to return. I went through the kitchen and tried to make all the noise possible, not wanting to invade whatever was happening in the room. As I entered, the voices were already silent and they were sitting side by side on the couch, looking deeply into each other's eyes, Cheryl's face full of tears and a slow smile flickering to Toni. She got up and wore a handkerchief to wipe away the tears when she saw me, and Toni looked at me with that extraordinary smile and another spark in her eyes, radiating euphoria through the living room.

"Welcome back, mon trésor!" She greeted me as if we had not seen each other in a long time.

"The rain stopped." I informed them and couldn't help but smile her back.

"Is that so?" She looked genuinely surprised and I guessed that everything had really disappeared around them.

I nodded and she smiled again, watching the sunlight reflecting and spreading across us. She got up and buttoned her suit, opening the glass doors and going out to breathe in the cool air left by the summer rain.

"Come and see, Cher." She turned and held out a hand to my cousin. "The rain stopped."

"I'm happy for it, TT." Cheryl reached for her hand and entwined their fingers, the sun shining on both of them like a divine miracle.

Toni stared at their hands entwined and I thought she might start crying.

I don't know what stunned me most, whether it was the nickname pronouns they used to refer to each other, or whether it was Cheryl's tragic voice expressing genuine joy, even with traces of an immense sorrow

"I want you and Cheryl to come to my house, mon trésor. I want to show her my castle." She summoned without looking at me, smiling absurdly at Cheryl.

"Are you sure you want me there?" I had to ask, because I didn't want to be a nuisance, they had five years to catch up with each other.

Then she turned to me, just like Cheryl, and their smiles sheltered me in two different ways. Cheryl's smile was the rare one I liked so much, the one that gave you the impression that you are the most important person in the world to her, and at that moment I felt that I was as important as Toni and I felt honored, because she looked for me there in an even more precious way, as if I finally understood her. I felt loved by her own form. And Toni's smile made me feel welcome to her world, the world she kept hidden for five years, a world built and protected by what she felt for Cheryl and she wanted to share that moment with me.

"Absolutely, mon trésor." She squeezed the cane in one hand and gently held Cheryl's fingers with the other. "Absolutely."

 

At the sound of Toni's orders, the main gates opened for us and we walked through the wide avenue, diverting on the lawn to contemplate the magnanimous facade of the castle. The sun glinted on the droplets, and all was brightness and color shining before our eyes and the scent of the sea came with the cool breeze and swirled in the air around us with the fragrance of the flowers of the immense gardens. What an incomparable vision, like a dream of stone and marble in colossal architecture. Cheryl was fascinated, whirling around herself with her head down, her slippers sliding from the grass to the gravel, a laugh echoing gracefully from her throat as she leaned down to touch the warm water of the fountain.

"Sensational, right...?" Toni whispered to me.

"It certainly is." I laughed before looking at her and found her staring at Cheryl, each delicate and open movement of my cousin's arms, as if she could touch the top of the castle towers. I realized that she wasn't talking about her own property, but about the young woman who, for her, overshadowed all the riches around.

"Do you like it?" Toni asked her, hands in her pockets, circling her across the space as if she was admiring a work of art.

"I love it." Cheryl confessed excitedly, laughing with all her heart. "But you live in this palace all alone, TT?" Her voice faded, as if she expected and wanted Toni to have intimate people, a family to share it with.

"I'm never alone." She laughed and held my cousin's hand, gently kissing her knuckles, causing a flush and a sigh. "You come with me?"

Cheryl smiled in fascination and held her hand firmly, gesturing for me to cling to her other arm as if we were about to embark on a journey together. "Let's go!" She exclaimed. "I demand the royal tour!"

Toni guided us along the west wing, strangely through the kitchen, and we came across a huge machine, where an servant leaned with oranges in his arms over a large funnel and through the tubes we could see the sweet juice passing to a faucet, where Toni cleverly opened, filled two glasses and handed it to me and Cheryl.

"This beauty here can extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour." She explained, waving at the nice servant.

"It's marvelous..." Cheryl drank as if she was drinking the elixir of life, holding again the hand of our hostess.

Well, it wasn't the elixir of life, but I can say that I had never tasted and maybe I could never taste again a juice so sweet and fresh, almost invigorating. There was an inexplicable variety of cakes, breads, swiss cheeses, indian spices, and a few delicacies that I couldn't even recognize, but I think Toni realized that Cheryl wouldn't eat anything until we finished the tour, so bright and enthusiastic she was right there.

At last I could really see what was behind those innumerable doors as Toni opened one by one and introduced us to the rooms. There was a room reserved for dozens of costumes and masks, another reserved for sporting goods, another reserved for silverware and porcelain, and even a room reserved for lost things that people left at their parties and didn't return to recover. She led us through the corridors in red persian tapestry, showing paintings on the walls and sculptures on the sideboards, showed us treasures, cellars, told stories of her voyages at sea and pointed at the watercolored ceilings, and she was assured, all the time, that Cheryl was still smiling. Just as she wished, with each new door my cousin's eyes filled more and more with wonder.

The more she saw and allowed herself to be delighted, the more she brought an unprecedented and extraordinary smile to Toni. It was divine to watch them, as if I only realized there that I had never seen something so beautiful unfolding before my eyes

Toni took us to her room and the simplicity surprised me. It was, in fact, the simplest room in the castle. A large bed of dark sheets in the center, a modern oval chest at the front, an immense oriental rug beneath everything, a reading armchair under the wide and tall window sill, the view of the broad and beautiful beach before it. It was a discreet suite, a small mirror and a wall filled with old photos, maps and framed newspapers. Most impressive was the mezzanine, filled with piles of impeccably folded clothes, where Toni scrambled up the snail stairs with a mischievous grin.

"A war companion sends me clothes straight from England!" She began to pull a stack of bright, modern hats, whirling them into the air for us to catch.

"I've never seen anything so wonderful, TT!" Cheryl laughed, trying one of the beautiful hats over her vibrant red hair.

"He sends me a new collection every beginning of the season!" Toni went on with her magic, tossing shirts and robes and vests and coats, Cheryl tried to catch each of them as they fell slowly, and I just watched their perpetual play, taking my last sip of orange juice.

"TT!" She exclaimed between giggles, climbing on the bed, the clothes falling on her and sliding to the mattress, her laughter echoing in the room like a prayer. "It's stunning!"

"Flannel?" Our hostess tossed a coat. "Knit? Satin?" And then tailoring trousers and a beautiful gold scarf. "Astrakhan? Silk? Maybe cashmere?" And she went on throwing a sweater, a party dress, and a long cloak. "Whatever you desire!"

"TT, stop!" Cheryl laughed as I had never heard. "Fangs, stop her, she's crazy!"

"You got it, cousin!" I couldn't help laughing at her, caught by the pure joy they shared.

It was a fabric and color spectacle hovering gently, falling into Cheryl's hands and then onto the bed, spreading around the room like a costume festival. And Toni's smile, watching my cousin laugh and whirl between the clothes, seemed to make the world around me a little better, a little less scary.

But suddenly the charm seemed to shatter before us. Cheryl fell with the last clothes on the bed, kneeling, bending over the pieces and over her own body, carrying a shirt to her nose to inspire the scent. Toni knocked over the pile of clothes she held when we heard the first muffled sob and she ran down the snail stairs to her, sliding on the bed and touching her beyond the edge of her hands for the first time since they were reunited. She took Cheryl in her arms, resting her forehead against her trembling temple, while my cousin thrashed in almost silent tears.

"What is it?" She whispered, entwining their fingers. "What is it, princess?"

It was the first time she'd called Cheryl like that, and my cousin almost smiled, pressing her body into hers on the bed as if she needed to relive that touch before she disappeared again. I almost wanted to abandon my guarding position to tell her that Toni wouldn't disappear anymore, even if I couldn't promise that with exactness. Cheryl, on the other hand, didn't even move her arms to reciprocate the woman who held her.

"I-I'm..." Cheryl stammered. "I just feel absolutely sad..." It was no more than a murmur, but it echoed in Toni like thunder.

"Why...?" Toni's voice sounded sweet, like a kind of lullaby.

I thought, at that moment, that Cheryl would begin to struggle and scream all the anguish she faced in those five years without Toni. I thought she'd blame Toni and she'd never forgive her for going away to fight in the war and not coming back. But my cousin just stared at her with red eyes of tears, holding a black shirt in her hands, and laughed a watery laugh, as if nothing had happened. But I saw her and I know Toni saw her too. Five years echoed from Cheryl's throat in a five second sigh, before she whispered.

"I just had never seen such beautiful clothes before..."

Toni smiled at her, kissed her forehead and held her so firmly, as if it were impossible to let her go. We stood there, watching the landscape through the immense window, the faint afternoon sun after the rain began to set, the seagulls singing and hovering, the golden beach beginning to dim its lights and a single boat slowly wandering through the estuary.

"The mist doesn't allow us to see..." Toni recovered her voice, tucking Cheryl's head into her lap and caressing her red hair, her other hand pointing toward the bay. "But your house is right on the other side and every night I can see the reddish light at the end of your anchorage, winking at me, Cher."

Cheryl's eyes dropped from the window and she stared at Toni in a passionate, wordless trance. I wondered if she understood what Toni told her the same way I understood her, the reddish light, the hope she was trying to touch, the symbol she adopted as the purpose of her absolute passion.

"Uh..." I tried to break the silence, feeling embarrassed. "You have a large collection of pictures here, Toni."

"You think?" She smiled at me again, her hand still lovingly caressing Cheryl's hair. "Memories of the war and a few friends, mon trésor."

"Oh, I see..." In fact there was a picture of her, probably less than eighteen, between the frowning man in the leather coat and bowler hat, and the man I met at the restaurant, FP.

Toni got up, bringing Cheryl with her to sit properly, and opened the chest in front of the bed, pulling out a red book with gold edges. She opened it and placed it on Cheryl's lap, smiling at her.

"This kept me alive during the war. I wanted you to know."

The book was a series of photographs, crumpled flowers, faded letters, and a few more newspaper clippings, all about Cheryl. Words they exchanged before and during the war, hymns and promises of a future together, and Cheryl's tears came back like waves in a storm. This made Toni kiss her forehead again, and only then I noticed how there was pain behind every gesture of her, just as there was of my cousin.

"Toni..." Cheryl's voice sounded stern and melancholy. "Lady Topaz, your castle is undoubtedly colossal and I am grateful for the tour, but I must return to the East Egg."

"Cheryl..." Toni touched her face.

"Oh, it's so late..." Cheryl fled from her, rising and approaching to take my arm, a silent summons that I couldn't refuse. "I'm so happy to see you again. Perhaps we can meet for tea, maybe one day, maybe at one of your parties... Who knows?" She laughed nervously, trying to contain more and more tears. "There's so much to do, isn't there? I must leave now. You're fine, aren't you? You look more beautiful than ever, Toni..."

Toni contemplated her words, thrusting her hands into her pockets and sighing in agony. None of us thought that would happen and I almost whispered to Cheryl that she didn't need to be afraid, that she didn't have to rush or run. But I remembered the person before me, Toni Topaz, noble, selfless, a golden heart in a castle. She smiled with sadness and devotion and she opened the way for us.

"I'm fine, Cheryl." She murmured with a hint of sadness disguised in a splendid smile, and Cheryl dug her nails into my arm. "I hope to see both of you soon."

Cheryl practically dragged me away, tears falling once more as we marched out, my hat forgotten somewhere with the butler. I just followed her, I could say nothing, there was nothing to say. For five years she was tormented by a lost lover and now this lost lover is in front of her, living on the other side of the bay where she lives, sheltered in her castle, invading Cheryl and awakening her to life again.

We went to my car parked in my garden and I couldn't do anything but drive to East Egg. It started to rain again as we crossed the long tree-lined path and she faced the road, distant and closed in on herself, as if she were one of the boats lost in that haze that haunted the estuary.

I realized there that Cheryl had been drastically wrenched from the dream after the festival of colored shirts and the secret book of Toni's memories. There was no other explanation. I thought I saw the whole world falling on my cousin's shoulders, her marriage to Veronica, the return of Toni Topaz, the collision of her feelings with right and wrong, and somehow I felt guilty for inferring the consequences of that tea.

"Stop..." She whispered, squeezing her hand over my shoulder, her voice suffocating. "Stop the car, please, cousin!"

I braked the car abruptly, turning finally to try to comfort her. I held her hand for infinite moments until her face distorted, her cheeks reddened and she began to cry again, a fierce, desperate cry, covering her face with her other hand, sobbing over her trembling fingers, unable to look into my eyes.

"It's all right." I tried to calm her and I was a disaster. "It's fine, cousin, you're fine."

"This isn't real!" She bellowed between her teeth, clasping her hands in her dress on the lap. "It can not be real!"

"It is." I brushed her tears away with my thumb, unsure of how to proceed. "She's real. She's here."

"Turn around." She commanded and more endless tears rolled down her beautiful face like the storm outside, a sharp pain in her voice that made me shudder at every word. "You need to go back, Fangs, now!" Her hands shook me by the sleeve and there I finally obeyed.

In an abrupt move, I hitched the car in reverse, barely managing to see the world outside the car as the rain violently surrounded us. I returned on the open, empty road, recklessly, as if I were the sorrel guiding a knight to a princess in distress. I didn't know who was really in distress, Cheryl, Toni or myself, entangled in their pain and the five years lost, my only certainty was that I'd rather take her back to Toni than back to the Lodge Mansion.

Curiously, the gate was open. I hastened on the gravel in the alley, driven by the fluttering howl of her cry, not caring about the morals that surrounded me until then. I just wanted my cousin to stop crying, suddenly I found myself tired of seeing her so sad. I wanted to see her happy as she showed up with Toni. For her. For Jason. For me. For who we were as children growing up in Louisville.

When we stopped in front of the porch at the main entrance, she surprised me even before I could ask her to wait for me to get the umbrella. She held onto the hem of her dress and jumped out of the car fearlessly, trying to run up the slippery marble stairs above. I tried to follow her as fast as I could, but she was already on the second level, running without a brake.

"Cheryl, wait!" I called in the middle of the storm, trying to open the umbrella, the thick unstoppable drops drenching us both. "You can get hurt!"

But she didn't want to hear me, as if she were caught in a frenzy that could only be stopped by that presence that cherished both of us in very different ways. I stumbled over the little shoes she'd left behind and almost stopped to pick them up for her, because I don't think those delicate little feet had ever touched the cold, wet floor with the debris of leaves and petals brought in by the gale wind.

I was almost reaching her as she burst through the grand front doors, yanking them open, staggering on the glittering floor, all the eyes of the servants in the salon turning to us. Not a minute later, Toni emerged from one of the corridors, gasping for breath, her eyes widening as she found us drenched in her salon.

"Clean towels, now!" She commanded harshly to one of the butlers before looking guiltily at him. softening. "Please..."

Cheryl was trembling and she couldn't take her eyes off Toni, the last stream of tears fading hidden in her face, her red hair stuck to her skin, dripping from the rain. And I felt a phenomenon of the universe coming, something spreading in the air around us and vibrating on the floor beneath our feet, my cousin breathing loudly and Toni slowly approaching, as if she was terrified, one of her hands almost rising to Cheryl as if she embodied the reddish light of hope across the bay.

"Mon trésor..." Slid the fading whisper of her red lips.

As the butler wrapped me gently in a large fluffy towel, I finally understood.

Of course. How could I not realize it before?

_Someone used to call me that and I used to love it. It means 'my treasure'. I thought it would suit you, Fangs Fogarty, who is someone precious..._

Of course it could only have been Cheryl. And suddenly it turned my world upside down, Cheryl Blossom, my aristocrat cousin, surrounded by riches, jewels, mansions, gold and silver at her feet throughout her life, but the only existence to which she attributed the genuine quality of a treasure, it was Toni Topaz.

"Princess..." Toni whispered back and her voice never sounded more exhausted and anguished.

"I missed you." She gritted her teeth, stiffening her jaw, and for a second I thought she would dig her canine teeth into her own tongue. "I missed you so much..."

At that moment I witnessed another reunion, unlike the tea, that phenomenon coming from the universe, and all the opulence of the grand salon of the central wing turned into insignificant ashes in face of what blossomed before me, the servants and the descendant of Beethoven asleep on the keys of the pipe organ.

Toni ran to her, bumping into their bodies, holding her, fingers clenched on the back of her wet dress, the wet spot spilling into her shirt as Cheryl's hands probed her chest until they reached her face and nape, pulling it against her until their noses touched. Then my cousin leaned over her and captured her lips, such a brittle and defenseless sound echoing from Toni's throat that I thought her legs would collapse on the glittering floor.

And it didn't take long, for the thunders echoed and the rays ripped the sky outside, and Cheryl devoured Toni's mouth with her red lips, pulling her against her body as if the greed and the vice and the rapture could compensate for the five years in which they were apart. And Toni surrendered to her, sliding to the floor with Cheryl in her arms, unable to let her go, my cousin's kisses crawling to her chin and jaw and neck, hands caressing her pink-brown hair, as if she were everything Cheryl craved for years.

I think she was, indeed.

"You all are dismissed." The grave cavernous voice made me look away from them, the frowning man in the leather coat and bowler hat splurging with the servants after leaving a set of towels on the floor beside Toni, leaving only the three of us in that huge paradise room.

"Mon trésor précieux, mon trésor perdu..." Cheryl whimpered on her lips, trailing her nails under the collar of her shirt. "I thought I'd never see you again..."

Again, I wasn't very good in french, but it made sense the way it sounded in my ears, needy and relieved, counterbalancing her despair, slowing in waves. And Toni didn't answer, no word came out of her lips stained with red lipstick, her trembling hand just touched Cheryl's cheek and she shook her head, lost in some fascination and some whimper, until she finally squeezed her eyes and tears a slow stream crossing her chin. It was the first time I had seen Toni cry, me there, mere spectator of the phenomenon of the universe, perhaps the most beautiful and plangent of them all.

She stared at the golden vaulted ceiling and the candlelight in the baroque chandeliers made the tears in her face flicker. And then she looked at me, a grateful, gentle smile opening up, making me smile back. She took Cheryl in a big fluffy towel, but she didn't let her go, resting her against her chest, her chin resting on the red hair still pouring raindrops around. But my cousin rose to slide the tears from her face with her thumbs, kissing her softly again, and again and again, like a record of a reality that one day meant everything to her and that she was just discovering that those meanings haven't changed.

When Cheryl's body stopped shaking, Toni took her in her arms again, carrying her as if she weighed no more than a feather, a physical force she didn't seem to have, but which no one dared to challenge as she walked to her room in silence. I felt an intruder there, dripping on the glittering floor, watching them disappear up the stairs, and thought to hurry back to my house and wait for a phone call from Toni, Cheryl, maybe even Veronica looking for her wife.

"Come with me." The voice of the man in the leather coat and bowler hat woke me up. "I'll get dry clothes."

"I'm fine here, thank you." I shrugged before that man staring at me, arms folded, brows furrowed. "I should probably go home."

"Lady Topaz would like you to stay." He turned and waved. "Follow me."

"How do you know she wants me to stay?"

He looked back with flames in his eyes and waved again. "Follow me please."

I couldn't tell why I obeyed him. Maybe because I was too tired to walk a few feet in the storm, maybe because I wanted to make sure everything was fine with Cheryl, maybe because I had never heard that man speak so many words.

He led me into a room almost as big as Toni's, of dark colors and elegant furniture, disappearing into a large closet, the clink of hangers ringing as I tried not to wet anything around me. He returned with the unprecedented and surprising suggestion of a satisfied smile on his face, carrying in his arms a princely robe, dark green, patterned with arabesques.

"Take a bath. Use whatever you want, come back when you're ready."

"Thank you... Fellow." I risked an informal greeting, trying to make him look more human in those mechanical expressions and pronunciation.

He left without saying another word and I sank into the warm tub, relaxing for the first time since I'd invited Cheryl to tea.

 

When the water became cold, I took shelter in that distinctive robe and furry slippers that he must have placed while I was in the tub. I walked down the quiet corridor, the storm had ceased, the night had fallen. As I approached the grand salon, the flickering candlelight became clearer and the piano sound, slow and steady, almost made me float there.

There was no one but Toni and Cheryl in the room, not even Toni's loyal man so I could thank him again. There was a small shrine, a refuge, almost a realm in the center, a wide red carpet on the floor, surrounded by soft cushions and golden sconces, and Toni sitting with Cheryl lying on her lap, no more tears, no more despair, that sublime smile on Toni's face, shining and emanating everywhere, and an expression finally pacified in my cousin, her eyes closed, her hair between the fingers of her treasure.

On the spectrum of everything I thought I knew and understood, of all that surrounded me in a mad world, in a troubled time, was that love seemed at that moment absolutely revolutionary. Revolution before my eyes, red and gold and purple and pink and sparkling, in the fortress of a magnificent marble castle, because I had never witnessed something that, without any dealings or explanations, was so genuine and beautiful. I knew it couldn't be a mistake, even if it hurt me to be disloyal to Veronica, which didn't mean she didn't deserve such a retribution. In fact, I didn't even think about her or Elizabeth Jones, I thought of nothing but the feeling of doing something... Good. Something right.

Something noble.

The servants brought wine, shrimp soup with rosemary and australian bread, and I was surprised by the peace that settled upon us, as if nothing bad had happened and nothing bad could happen. Cheryl hummed an adorable chuckle as the smoke from the steaming soup tickled her lips and Toni looked at me just as the giggle sounded, closing her eyes and smiling rapturously, the piano echoing a minor arpeggio, and it was the perfect scene, the end of an unforgettable day and the beginning of a transcendental journey.

We laughed and my cousin hugged me and whispered a thank you, Toni's eyes mirroring her gratitude. They kissed each other with enviable tenderness, as if we were there unperturbed and triumphant and they told the lovely story of how they used to have fun in Louisville.

And when the weariness finally reached Cheryl's lively and extravagant spirit, she surprised us both by holding my hand, leaning back against Toni's chest and sighing for a second before falling asleep _"You came back to me, TT..."_ with a certainty so natural and sweet, as if that feeling were as alive in her as it was five years ago, nothing changed in her heart, it still belonged to Toni, and I wondered if it ever belonged to anyone other than her.

At that virtuous proclamation sound, Toni held her in his arms, closed her eyes again, and smiled with relief and fascination, as if she had waited all her life to hear those words. The dream to which she had remained loyal and hopeful during those five years was finally there, within reach, and I swore to see, while she held Cheryl, her tiny hand with long fingers catching and holding the reddish light in the anchorage on the other side from the bay.

_My old father used to say that the price of our dreams is always so inevitably onerous that the risk and fall come in the same proportions._

 

Exactly that same night, a dream yearned for and nourished for long five years found its glory. And one day it turned into almost every other day when Hermione took the little Josie to spend time with the Lodges in Chicago. And the days turned into weeks. For more than a month, after mid-summer, I, who knew only the stability of a university and the intensity of a war, witnessed for the first time that feverish living dream.

Like when we live a whole day at the beach. Kevin and I were bouncing balls in the sand and Cheryl and Toni were having their moment in the big wooden barge, drinking cocktails and photographing each other, and we laughed a lot when the butler almost fell in the water trying to get the camera Toni dropped when Cheryl caught her in a kiss worthy of spectacles of surprise.

"Cheryl is happy, isn't she?" Kevin smiled at me, drinking the orange juice from Toni's amazing machine, his bathing suits and his hair wet with sweat, and he had never seemed so spontaneous and peaceful.

I thought about that answer when their laughter echoed from the barge, Toni holding Cheryl in her arms and threatening to throw her in the water, and my cousin's legs dangling suspended while she was staging a drama. Of course, Cheryl Blossom has always been dazzling, though surrounded by chaos, burning with fire, she has always been beautiful, breathtaking indeed, but since the tea, it was different. She was shining and warming upon us like a magisterial light that can’t be extinguished. As if all the ghosts of her past disappeared.

"Yes." I smiled back at him. "I guess I've never seen her so happy."

When I saw days later Toni covering a wall of her bedroom with the photos she took of Cheryl, and my cousin's face burned the room with genuine joy, I knew I had given the right answer to Kevin.

On another warm afternoon, while Kevin read Jane Austen to me on the porch, both of us leaning against each other in the sky color divan, I listened with fascination to the sweetness of his voice, the tea steaming in my hands, but I also peered sideways as Cheryl played Debussy on the piano around the pool, sitting between Toni's legs, which rested her chin on her shoulder. And it seemed so intimate and imperturbable, as if no one could intervene, the last rays of sun falling on them like a blanket or a blessing.

The most invigorating and fun day was when we messed up the fantasies room. Cheryl dressed up as Robin Hood, Toni as fairy, Kevin as Sherlock Holmes and I was a musketeer. It was hours of Kevin playing to analyze me with the monocle and pretend to smoke the pipe, the fake mustache tickling him, and Toni trying to teach me some fencing moves with the silver rapier. I managed to disarm her only when she was mesmerized by Cheryl's haughty and majestic pose hitting all the arrows on the painted target on the haystack in the distance. I remember Cheryl was good with the bow, but there she looked like Robin Hood himself, free and fearless, almost heroic.

_Note: I must confess that she didn't seem so heroic to me when I stood trembling in the middle of the lawn after Kevin's smile convinced me to take part in their bet, and Cheryl, blindfolded, pointed the bow with the arrow bent to hit the apple over my head. When she hit, slicing the apple in half, and Toni celebrated whirling her in the arms, I just remember to sigh and faint right there._

_At least I woke up with Kevin caressing my hair. I think it was worth it._

We shared stories and laughter around the campfire, we danced on the beach with wine in our minds, we count constellations and photograph each moment, we were wild and free where no one could hold us back or stop us.

But my favorite day of all was after a feast of dishes from all over the world that Toni had prepared especially for us. Kevin and I were stuffed and laid back in the pillow shelter on the red carpet, his head on my lap, caressing his soft hair, while Toni summoned Beethoven's descendant to play for us and Cheryl whirled around the grand salon in an emerald dress, shining on the glittering floor.

"We should dance every day!" She whirled and laughed, lips painted red making her smile look even more charming.

"Well, we would be totally dizzy." Toni laughed, walking slowly around her in a black dress of gold stripes, as if she was admiring her. She used to do that all the time.

"Will you dance and be dizzy with me, TT?" Cheryl raised her own hand, waiting eagerly as Beethoven's descendant flexed his fingers over the keys of the pipe organ.

And that's why it was my favorite day, even though I was with Kevin Keller in my arms, although the music was fantastic, although the feast was delicious and although they danced like immaculate angels swirling in the clouds: Toni's eyes misted and she stepped forward to grab the hand of her beloved redhead, kissing her knuckles one by one and whispering like a promise of shakespearean sonnets.

"Until the world ends, princess."

Cheryl's lashes fluttered in commotion and I think mine did too.

There were days when privacy was welcome and I would retreat to my house, but I never stopped thinking about Toni and the dream she had built for them. I thought of when we learned to produce cheese, when we blur each other and played in the vineyard, when Toni led us to the aviary and Cheryl laughed and wept like a child in a fantasy realm. I thought about the flowers we picked up in the shore, the puzzles we set up, the drinks that numbed us, the golf ball that hit the bowler hat of Toni's loyal man, the shells on the tide, the sand castles before that magnanimous castle, the books, the poetry, the dance and the music, and a world of cherished memories that I never thought I would witness and be a part of.

Speaking of castle, of course, Toni's weekly parties were cut off and canceled immediately after that tea. It was like her purpose had been fulfilled and all the pomp of those extravagant festivities was no longer necessary, as if Toni had finally found everything she wanted to find, and no face besides me and Kevin was welcome to witness what they shared together.

In one of these memorable days, Toni invited us to an area of her home that we still didn't know. It stood right in the middle of the woods west of the castle, behind the shore, like a hidden refuge. Cheryl used a blindfold in her eyes, and Kevin and I were still intrigued, dying of curiosity to break the silence and ask Toni the fate of our walk.

I'm happy to say it was worth the wait.

When Toni took the blindfold out of Cheryl, Kevin and I were already gaping, almost tripping over each other as we stumbled upon that splendorous divine vision before our eyes. It was a great cherry tree, right in the middle of the small grove, lofty and sumptuous, the dark bark trunk, flowers and little crimson bouquets, brilliant rose and pink, delicate and precious, like a sanctuary in the middle of the elderly trees. Petals covered the ground like a candy-cotton carpet and the wind blowing the branches made it look like a wave coming out of a child's dream.

I was waiting for Cheryl to enjoy it, but not for her to cover her lips with trembling fingers and to turn away, her eyes overflowing with tears. Toni went to her and held her and smiled, sliding the tears off her face with her thumbs, kissing her cheek. And my cousin seemed desperate in her fascination, shrinking into Toni's embrace in a heartbroken sob.

"It took me a while to acquire it." Toni explained looking at us and then turned to my cousin again, resting their foreheads. "But it's finally here."

I didn't know if she was talking about the cherry tree or about themselves.

"Our first kiss..." Cheryl touched reverently to her lips.

"It changed my life forever." Toni whispered, closing her eyes.

Cheryl grabbed her by the lapel of the purple suit she was wearing and kissed her so deeply and warmly that Kevin and I withdrew silently.

I thought I'd finally kiss him after what we saw and felt at that moment...

But I didn't.

 

Later that day, after I picked up my hat and went to Toni's room to say goodbye and to tell them that I had warned at the Lodge Mansion that Cheryl would stay the night at my house, I accidentally heard their voices on the porch before I could knock on the door.

"I wish my whole life had been for you..." Cheryl's voice was saddened. "And that the rest of our lives could be like this..."

"It can be." Toni fiercely replied, the popping sound of a kiss sounding just after. "It will be."

"TT..." Cheryl whined.

"I promise you, princess." Toni was whispering painfully.

"I'm afraid..."

"Of me?"

"No, mon trésor, never... How could I fear you? You are the only existence I do not fear. Besides Kevin and cousin Fangs..."

"What are you afraid of? I'm going to face what or whoever it is. I'll end them if I have to."

"I'm afraid to turn this in something real."

"We're already real." Toni sounded fierce again. "We've always been real. But if you're not ready to face Veronica, my princess..."

"I love you." Cheryl interrupted abruptly. "You're the greatest love I've ever known, Toni Topaz."

I didn't say goodbye and I left in the silence that remained behind.

That night I went to bed thinking about Cheryl's marriage. I hadn't thought of Veronica for a long time because she didn't even care to know where Cheryl was going almost every day. But to think of her, Ronnie, whom I used to call a great friend, in that moment of absolute happiness, ruffled my spine and shuddered each bone inside my body.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed. See you guys soon. :)
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	6. Choose Your Last Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Toni..." Realization struck me like a blow to my head. "Are you trying to change Cheryl?"
> 
> "Change?" She walked away, offended. "I'm trying to save her!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are getting complicated, my friends.
> 
> Wish you a good read. :)

 

A few days later I received a strange invitation to a party on a cold Friday night at Toni's castle. I didn't understand the reason for a party at that moment, after weeks of privacy and joy, but the black three-piece suit and the red bowtie, glistening in velvet, wouldn't allow me to refuse. Kevin came to get me in his car and ran over my beautiful flowers, but I just smiled and boarded, because not even his reckless way of driving could undo the spell he had imprisoned me in. I was in love with Kevin Keller and that night I admitted this truth to myself for the first time.

I figured out that all of Long Island was again enjoying the wonders of the castle, but apart from all those people, one presence, or rather two, surprised me on the porch, drinking champagne right next to Toni in her elegant purplish tuxedo and blacktie. It was Cheryl in a stunning long-sleeve rust color dress covered in tiny crystals and Veronica Lodge in a sumptuous and tight cobalt dress with capped neckline.

There was a peculiarity that night. It was still the same buzz, music, dance, alcohol, celebrities, a jazz group in red suits on the platform over the pool, but there was something different in the air, something probing us, it smelled of danger and conspiracy and made me instantly uncomfortable. As for the presences that surprised me, I was shocked at how Toni seemed composed, smiling sympathetically at Veronica, as well as amazed me that Ronnie was completely blind to the way Cheryl looked and smiled at Toni right there in front of her.

"Mr. Fogarty! Mr. Keller!" Toni waved, snapping her fingers for a waiter to deliver champagne to us, and Veronica seemed relieved.

We were like five strangers drinking champagne on the porch above the pool. Veronica was looking at the faces of the individuals passing by, watching everything as if she were trying to figure something out. Toni and Cheryl continued to smile secretly at each other, the suggestion of an accidental touch, a wink, a lick of the lips. Kevin and I, very aware of the risk hanging over us, were just quiet and disconcerted.

"You must be recognizing a lot of people here. All the celebrities and public figures have come tonight." Toni smiled and lifted her glass to Veronica.

But my old friend smiled in disgust. "We didn't go out much." It was a lie, at least on her part. "It's difficult to know when you seem to receive here not only celebrities, but also the savages of the periphery."

"Everyone is welcome." Toni replied politely, never stop smiling. "What's the point of owning everything if there's no one to share it with?"

"Are you married?" Veronica turned completely to her and I felt that a strange game of cat and mouse had begun, Cheryl shuddering in the middle of them with the arm tight on her wife's.

"I'm not Mrs. Lodge."

"And you have no children, I suppose?"

"I haven't, Mrs. Lodge."

"Where is your family? Any members to introduce?"

"I lost them a long time ago, Mrs. Lodge."

"Very well." Veronica drank the rest of the champagne. "Sharing with strangers is not exactly sharing, am I right?"

Toni nodded in some kind of withdrawal, but the smile she wore was so powerful it made my old friend look away. It was a proud smile, because she knew something Veronica didn't know, she had someone to share everything she owned, all the wealth and beauty of that castle, right next to her, the only person who was truly important to her.

"Mrs. Lodge." Toni called and Cheryl and Veronica looked at her, but she immediately offered her hand to my cousin. "May I have this dance?"

Cheryl revered her with a clever little smile, and they went down to dance. When Veronica looked grimly at them, snorting and sneaking out to find a stronger drink, I could only shrug and quietly invite Kevin to a dance. Everything I really wanted was to have a quiet, intimate dance with the man I'd found myself in love with that night, but I couldn't stop wondering why Cheryl took Veronica there, or maybe even worse, why Toni invited them both and not just Cheryl.

As a good watcher, I tried to divide my attention between Kevin's futile and adorable words as we danced and what was happening around me. I watched the world happen from his arms and I felt less fear, as if he were protecting me from the chaos about to explode. I watched Veronica courting Valerie Brown, the Broadway star, at the corner of the porch. I watched the man in leather coat and bowler hat walking sullenly among the party. I watched Cheryl and Toni dancing as if everything had disappeared, smiling at each other, their eyes narrow, their noses almost touching.

After two dances, Kevin looked at my lips and sighed, asking permission to get a drink. I wondered if he had looked at my lips other times while we danced and I felt the stupidest on Earth for not being completely focused on him. I knew I wanted him a long time ago, but for some intriguing reason, I wanted to make sure nothing was bumping between Toni and Veronica. I feared for Toni, for I knew how powerful and raging a Lodge could be.

Throughout the party I realized that Cheryl never smiled unless she was with Toni. Celebrities introduced themselves, she met illustrious and brilliant people, she danced with me and Kevin, and Kevin's friends liked her much more than they liked me. She offered empty, brief smiles, silent greetings, nodding and waving like a bored royalty. But when Toni approached, she became completely the happiest person in the universe.

At some point I couldn't observe precisely because I was too busy regretting seeing Kevin dancing with Mr. Clayton again, Cheryl and Toni disappeared from my sight. I tried not to worry, but Veronica came out of the gardens mending her hair and wiping a lipstick stain on her neck with a handkerchief, walking casually as if she could hide what she was up to.

"Fangs, there you are." She smiled at me, ordering a whiskey on the counter. "Did you happen to see my wife? I can't find her."

Maybe I was too frightened and wondering things, but I could swear she was testing me.

"I haven't seen her in a while." I lied.

"Well... If you find her, tell her I'm looking for her."

As soon as she walked away, I started to panic, as if I were a child caught in mischief. Not because I was loyal to Veronica, but because I thought she might find them first and a tragedy would happen. On one hand I thought Veronica might not care, but on the other, my bones froze, imagining her wrath on my already dear friend Toni Topaz. It was like Toni had come to represent to me all the good and precious things in the world and I didn't want anything bad to happen to her.

Strange hypocrisy, considering that I knew Veronica could, depending on what she found out and how it made her feel, discount her anger on Cheryl.

A sense of recognition happily led me down the marble stairs to the grove, where I knew that there was, hidden from the prying eyes, a beautiful cherry tree, a refuge built only for my cousin. When I crossed the old trees, they were there, lost in kisses and caresses, without even noticing my arrival. I waited leaning on one of the trunks, just trying to give them more time before warning about Veronica's suspicions.

"I wish we could just run away..." Cheryl whispered, closing her eyes as Toni eagerly kissed her neck.

That seemed to wake Toni, though. "How could we run away?" She looked suddenly incredulous. "We'll live here, princess. Me and you and I will love Josie as if she's mine."

"TT..." Cheryl sighed.

"You can do this, princess. I'll be with you the whole time."

"What if...?"

"We're so close, princess... So close..."

"I'm afraid."

"I know." Toni took her in arms, caressing her red hair. "Dreams are frightening, but it's right here, before us, our dream, don't you see? We can have everything."

"Mon trésor..."

"Please." Her pleading voice made me swallow. "I'll never ask you anything else, I promise. I love you so much, my princess, so much..."

They kissed fervently and I felt it was time to announce myself. I approached them as they pulled away and sighed on each other's lips. Cheryl was the first to see me, and she covered all the traces of her anguish, smiling at me kindly.

"Dear cousin, you look so handsome tonight..."

"So are you, cousin." I couldn't help smiling at her back.

"Is everything alright up there, mon trésor?" Toni frowned, aware that I wouldn't interrupt them if it was not necessary.

"It's Veronica." I sighed. "She's looking for you, cousin. I think she's a little drunk."

The information made Cheryl cling even more to Toni and I thought she would start crying. Toni remained steady, watching me with regret, while my cousin reverently kissed her chest, not wanting to let her go.

"Lady Topaz." Another voice intervened between us. It was the man in a leather coat and bowler hat, coming out of the shadows to approach Toni in alarm. "Malachai and Penny are here. They're waiting in the library."

"Nothing is more important now than being right where I am." She countered, tightening her arms around Cheryl.

"Milady..." He cleared his throat. "FP is with them."

She seemed to shudder and Cheryl seems to have felt. She stopped kissing her and their eyes met under the cherry tree, my cousin's hand caressing her cheek gently, whispering. "Go, mon petit amour. I'm fine."

"All of our dreams, princess." Toni took her hand and kissed it, making Cheryl close her eyes. "In the palm of our hands."

She guided Cheryl to take my arm, bowed briefly to us, and followed her loyal man into the library. I knew, when my cousin looked at me and opened a melancholy smile, that something had happened between them, something to do with those words they shared, that I heard and couldn't guess what it was.

As soon as Toni left us, the night went downhill. Cheryl spent the rest of the party unhappy and afflicted. Veronica was really intoxicated and she kept talking about investigating what Toni was working on and the books she read and I stood next to my cousin, holding her arm and watching Kevin in the arms of all the men at the party, dancing carefree. More people came to meet Cheryl and greet her beautiful dress and Kevin tried to persuade us to play poker with his friends, but as the night faded and Toni was still absent, she became increasingly sorrowful and distant, occasionally touching her own her lips as if she clung to a precious memory.

When Veronica staggered to the car, no longer worried about covering a stain of lipstick on her cobalt dress, leaning on Cheryl's shoulder, and all the others would retreat as the servants began to prepare the cleaning, Toni finally appeared on the porch, holding in dismay a bottle of champagne and tossing it in the pool.

"Cheryl just left." I said with regret.

"She hated it tonight." Toni slipped her hands into the pockets of her suit and stared at me for a second, striding down stairs with disillusionment all over her face.

"Nonsense!" I tried to cheer her up, following her with two glasses of champagne. "I bet she loved the party."

"She wasn't having fun." She sighed and drank. "It was my fault. I don't know if I can make her understand."

"She knows you have your business to deal with." I kept myself optimistic.

"Business?" She frowned. "No, mon trésor, she doesn't care about business, she doesn't care about the party, she doesn’t care about anything. I don't know if I can make her understand, it's so hard, and my princess seems so distant now..."

"What are you talking about, Toni?" We started walking together on the pier, isolated from the servant's ears, and it was my turn to frown.

"She needs to understand." She insisted, staring at me sternly. "She needs to tell Veronica she never loved her."

I almost tripped over the pier's board at the revelation. I felt my heart clench like a grape in the hand of a curious child, sloshing juice and withering. "Why would you ask her for something like that?"

"Don't tell me you don't understand either..." Her voice was soft. "It's the only way, mon trésor. It can't be otherwise."

"I don't understand." I confessed. "Explain to me."

"At the beginning of the autumn we met, I didn't expect anything, but I was looking for something. I think some kind of happiness before going to die in the war. The officers took me to that superb mansion, as large and rich as I had ever seen…"

"The Blossom Mansion." I guessed.

"The Blossom Mansion." She nodded. "You see, mon trésor, I wasn't expecting anything and I didn't mean to cling to anything. But as soon as I saw her, something blossomed within me. I had no pretense in life other than to die in the war and to have some glory in some memorial of an abandoned quarter, but there she was, in that little cream dress, bare legs, red lips, smiling and snubbing, to her mother's disgust, all ladies who courted her."

I smiled. It looked a lot like the young Cheryl.

"She ran away from the party and I followed her, even though I still didn't know why. We played foolishly for a moment around the bandstand, she was charming, laughing, running delicately. She pretended to be angry and scolded me 'why are you stalking me?', laughing, unable to keep the act. And then... Suddenly she was leaning against a cherry tree, her dress illuminating the night's darkness. She touched my face and started to approach and I knew, I just knew, mon trésor, that I would never be the same again after kissing that girl."

"And you were right...?"

"I held her chin for a second, marvelling at her soft skin, until a shooting star tore the sky above us." She clenched her fists in the air, as if remembering that demanded effort and hurt her. "I surrendered to her at that moment, I held her so tightly, Fangs, Cheryl Blossom blossomed in my arms like one of the flowers falling from the cherry tree, I saw my life change before my eyes closed. She was pure fire and fever and I thought I would go mad. But I was just falling in love with her..."

"What does all this mean?" I sighed tiredly, moved by her story, but worried about what I heard earlier.

"It means that my princess is lost somewhere inside her, she was locked up by the Blossoms and the Lodges, they tried to extinguish her flame, but it's there somewhere. When she frees herself from Veronica, everything will be a fire again."

"Toni..." Realization struck me like a blow to my head. "Are you trying to change Cheryl?"

"Change?" She walked away, offended. "I'm trying to save her! Did you know she cries every night with terrible nightmares? They broke her, they broke my princess... But I can rescue her."

"But put her in that position, I don't know if..."

"She can do this. She just needs more time." She stepped firmly on the pier's board, sticking her belief. "Then I'll take her to Louisville and Clifford and Penelope will bless us. I'll put all the pieces in their proper places, mon trésor. She just needs to take the first step."

"You can't change the past, Toni..." I pleaded my truth.

"Of course I can!" She pulled away again, leaning over the grate of the pier, a growl fading into her throat. The silence fell on us for a few minutes and I was completely confused, as if I was meeting a Toni face that, in a way, frightened me in all its pride and inflexibility.

"Toni...?" I tried to get closer.

"You don't understand, mon trésor." She turned to me with her eyes red with tears, a trembling hand rising open to the castle behind us. "I did everything for her. The castle, the luxury, the fantasy. I got everything for her, for the life, for the care, for the love she deserves, and now she wants to run away?" She abruptly wiped away her own tears, regaining her impassive pose. "I can't change the past, but I can repeat it. It should never have happened between Cheryl and Veronica Lodge. We're going to fix this and everything will be as it should have been. More time. She just needs more time..."

I watched her, trying to understand where all of that came from exactly. I wondered if it was only because of Cheryl, an attempt to blow away all the pain she had suffered during those five years, or whether it was about Toni herself, of something that she lost or that she left behind and she was trying to recover. Maybe a version of herself, the one she discovered in a masterful glimpse as she kissed Cheryl under the cherry tree on an autumn evening.

"I'm sorry if I was harsh with you, mon trésor." She smiled at me and for a second it seemed that the conversation never existed.

"It's all right." I tried to be honest even though I was still lost.

"You must rest. Summer is almost over and it will be a splendid autumn ahead of us." She sighed and turned to the sea. "Good night, mon trésor."

"Good night... Toni."

I left her and crawled into my house, exhausted and tormented by her words. I was afraid for her, for Cheryl, for that beautiful summer we shared together. And as I prepared to go to sleep, drinking a glass of water to calm myself down from those events, I saw, through my window, Toni Topaz alone on the pier, rising her hand to the reddish light at the end of the anchorage on the other side of the bay.

Like the parties, our meetings were also interrupted. No one else was allowed into the castle, except for a mysterious car with dark windows that I knew to be carrying Cheryl. Lights went out, the pipe organ was silenced, and all the curious journalists who tried to find out what had happened were kicked out by the leather coat and bowler hat man, dragging themselves with bleak purple eyes back to New York. As the days went by I was worried, but Toni would say on the phone that everything was fine and that we would meet soon.

What I didn't expect was a phone call in the middle of the night, her voice full of anguish on the other side.

"Cheryl's ready." She announced. "Tomorrow will be the day. She just demanded you and Kevin to be there. Will you be there, mon trésor? She needs y... I need you."

As if I prepared to face the executioner's ax, I sighed and I let myself fall into the armchair, the darkness of the living room swallowing me.

"Tomorrow then, my friend."

 

On the next day, our way to East Egg was completely silent, tainted with fear and anxiety. We followed on the Duesenberg Rolls-Royce of Toni and the Sun shone on us as a promise that it could be mild. A promise in which, of course, I didn't believe. I've known Veronica for years, and if there's anything I could say it was that she hates to lose, whether it's in the game, in love, or in life itself.

Toni also seemed lost in her thoughts. I wondered if, like me, she was afraid Cheryl would lose her sanity in that process. We were both in simple shirts, me with green and she with white and copper-colored tailor's pants, and the pink suspender of blue stripes with her sunglasses made her look calmer than she really was.

Veronica thought we would have a simple lunch among supposed friends, so as soon as we were announced at Mansion Lodge, she went down to her cellar to fetch one of her best whiskeys as we followed to wait for her in the divan room and the glass doors and white curtains, all open again, where Cheryl and Kevin were already waiting for us, my cousin in a lovely crimson dress and him in a yellow sweater and white pants. Playing with danger, Cheryl ran and threw her arms around Toni's neck, kissing her in the middle of the room, laughing in her mouth adorably.

"Don't you know you are the love of my life?" She whispered into Toni's ear.

"Calm yourself down, girl." Kevin pretended annoyance, rolling his eyes.

"Trying to ruin my happiness, gentleman?" She raised an eyebrow at him, engaging in the joke. "You should leave me alone and kiss your Fangs."

I couldn't help blushing.

"Such a naughty, naughty girl...!" He laughed, crossing his arms.

I thought I'd take the cue to kiss him.

I didn't.

Cheryl was so happy right then. It was as if the four of us were back to those days in the castle, libertines, lovers, lying in the shelter of the red carpet in the middle of the grand salon. But as soon as Veronica came back from the cellar with the whiskey, that pure joy disappeared and she became extremely agitated, trying to light a cigarette with trembling hands, Toni helping her with concern in her eyes. I had never seen my cousin smoking before.

"My Josephine is with her grandparents in Chicago, but I long for you to meet her soon." Cheryl smiled at Toni, the cigarette still shaking in her hand.

"It will be my pleasure." Toni bowed and tried to remain calm.

"How hot!" Veronica exclaimed, pulling the navy blue dress at her neckline, making us all look at her in one of the doors, staring out across the bay. "We should be on the beach right now."

"My home is just across the estuary." Toni commented casually with her.

"Oh, yes?" The fierce grin of her response made me shudder. "What a remarkable coincidence..."

"I heard there are no coincidences." Toni smiled. "You, as a distinguished lady of the modern world, wouldn't agree to this?"

"Maybe I do." Veronica narrowed her eyes.

"And after all, being this distinguished lady of the modern world, you will also agree with what I have to tell you." Toni turned to Cheryl, silently announcing that the moment had come, as if she couldn't waste another minute, and Kevin looked at me terrified.

"Oh, how hot it is today!" Cheryl ignored her, rising from the divan and walking mechanically through the room. "We must go to the city, where it is not so hot! Yes, get up, I summon everyone to go to the city immediately...!"

"We haven't even had lunch yet." Veronica frowned, intrigued.

"What does it matter about missing lunch?" Her voice trembled and she held her hands against her chest in distress. "Why does everything matter, anyway? Everything we do today, everything we do ten years from now! Why follow these standards?"

"You're being dramatic." Veronica snorted. "It's too hot to get out of here. "

"It will be my pleasure to take you to the city, Mrs. Lodge." Toni intervened, smiling at Cheryl, coming boldly to take her hand. "Let's get my car."

"Fine!" Veronica hurried past us to have the butler bring a towel and another bottle of whiskey, almost violently crashing into Toni in the process. "Let's all go to the city now."

I knew there the explosion was just beginning.

The clerk brought Veronica's blue coupé and parked it behind Toni's Duesenberg Rolls-Royce, and we all looked at each other in bizarre and embarrassing silence.

"Let's go to Pembrooke." Veronica decided. "It's airy and the opening will be in the fall, so we'll have the Hotel just for us."

"Whatever you choose, my friend." I smiled, trying to dissuade all of us from that strange situation.

"Your car is a bit fussy, is not it?" Veronica looked at Toni.

"It's very fast and requires immersion. It's my own Nautilus." She smiled proudly.

"I'm going to drive it. Come on, Cheryl, I'm taking you in this circus machine." Veronica ordered again. "We'll find you there."

"I'll accompany Lady Topaz on the coupé." Cheryl corrected. "We'll meet you there, I'll bet we'll get there first!" She winked charmingly and smiled, but Veronica almost howled in disapproval.

It wouldn't help, though. Veronica boarded the Duesenberg Rolls-Royce, then Kevin and I followed. She immediately kicked off, accelerating abruptly, the car firing and leaving the dust for the blue coupé. Toni's car was as fast as I remembered and Veronica made no effort to be gentle with the extraordinary machine.

We stood in silence, the coupé far behind us, until we reached the border of West and East Egg, at the entrance to the valley of the ashes, when Veronica shifted uncomfortably on the wide seat and mumbled once and for all.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" I almost cringed in the seat at that voice, but Kevin remained unpretentious and calm. "You think I don't know you're all trying to deceive me..."

"What are you talking about, Ronnie?" Kevin acted perfectly.

"You saw what I saw." She squeezed her hands on the steering wheel. "That smile Cheryl gave to this Topaz, that damn smile I've never seen in all these years married to her..."

"Lady Topaz is very nice." I tried to get around it. "It's easy to smile next to her."

"Humph!" She protested and stepped on the accelerator, spreading ashes around. "My men have investigated her past and I know she is not good company."

"You're being paranoid." Kevin kept the character, sliding his fingers on the bench to hold my trembling hand. "If you don't trust her, why the lunch invitation?"

"Cheryl who invited her. They met before we were married and probably this woman, or the character she plays, is taking advantage of my Cheryl."

_My Cheryl._

She'd never called her like that before.

"Please, Ronnie, control yourself." I spoke almost boldly. "Lady Topaz is a woman of principles, a good woman. She would never take advantage of anyone."

"Humph! I'll prove it to you, Fangs. I'm sorry, but you've never been a good judge of character, my friend."

I wished to say: _It must be because of this that we are friends._

But I didn't.

"I'm tired of this conversation already." Kevin rolled his eyes. "Let's stop and put some gas."

"We have enough gas to get to the city." Veronica protested.

"Let's fill the tank." He insisted. "It's too hot and I'm not going to be stuck in the middle of the Bridge."

Strangely, the only possible place in the valley of ashes was Jughead's workshop. When we stopped, Veronica came out reluctantly, the owner creeping up to us, pale and with deep dark circles under his eyes, his lowered suspenders and his grimy shirt.

"Come on, Jones. I'm in a hurry." Veronica sighed.

"Are you feeling all right?" I asked the man for education.

"I'm sick." He shrugged.

"What kind of sick?" Veronica walked away disgusted.

"The kind that steals your strength..." He crawled to the pump, plugging into the car to fill the tank. "You know... What about that car you were going to sell me?"

"My men are almost ready." Veronica looked around. "Where is your wife?"

"She's... Resting up there." Suddenly he became gloomy. "We have a long drive in the late summer. We're going to San Francisco."

"Go visit relatives?"

"No. I already got a good house..."

"Are you leaving for good..?" She was mortified.

"We are. I'm going and I'm going to drag her with me. It's all settled and I'm tired of this dump."

At that moment, a blue coupé passed us.

I saw sweat trickling down Veronica's forehead and panic exploding through her lashes. It was as if she had everything under control, her wife and her lover, and suddenly the two were escaping between her fingers at the same time.

"Two dollars, Mrs. Lodge..." Jughead snorted.

She threw five dollars into his face. "Keep the change."

We jumped on the Duesenberg Rolls-Royce and Veronica stepped on the accelerator again, stronger and deeper than ever, choosing to reach the coupé and leave the workshop behind. For a second I thought I saw, watching the coupé disappear from view through the workshop's window with blood in her eyes, Elizabeth Jones miserable and isolated.

Veronica drove as if she needed to pair with the coupe at any cost. She looked angry, her lips tight and her eyes sharp, as if at any moment she could fatally trample anyone in her way. It seemed that she feared the coupé would take an alternate route and disappear to never return, taking Cheryl away forever.

At the same time I just didn't understand why she was acting like she cared.

 

When we got to Pembrook, the grand hotel Veronica would inaugurate soon, she couldn't take her eyes off of Cheryl. The way Cheryl tripped down from the coupe, and Toni held her too close. The way Cheryl took her hands. The way Cheryl smiled at her. I knew what she was talking about when she accused my cousin of smiling at Toni in a way none of us had seen before, because it was simply the truth.

The Hotel was very Lodge, indeed. It was built of imported black marble, italian tapestry, golden banister staircases, curved and wide windows, a modern palace for aristocrats to feel noble and superior in the midst of New York's urban cacophony. Veronica led us to the main suite, the largest room in the palace, and ordered someone to bring us ice, mint and the best whiskey in the house.

Kevin opened all the windows because of the heat and the wind caressed us as we settled in quietly, though I could hear scandalous voices in everyone's eyes around me as if something was about to explode and none of us knew when or how to stop it.

"Open another window, my dear Kevin..." Cheryl relieved herself with a fan, sitting gently on a beautiful velvet divan.

"There are no more windows to open." Veronica snorted at her, running over Kevin's likely gentle response.

"It's your Hotel, darling." Cheryl smiled sarcastically at her. "Order your employees to bring a pickaxe and we can open more windows."

"If you stop complaining about the heat, darling, it may not be so unbearable." Veronica smiled back voraciously.

"You should leave her alone." Toni's voice echoed commander and we all looked at her, the teasing ceased immediately, her eyes steady and soft on Cheryl.

The explosion was closer, but I still didn't know when it would happen.

Veronica seemed to remember that Lady Topaz was with us. She unrolled the bottle of whiskey, serving only to herself and strangely to Toni, pouring out a generous sip before starting in a hoarse voice. "Very well, Topaz..." Toni turned to hear her. "You graduated from Oxford, I heard rumors?"

"Not exactly, but I went to Oxford." She smiled politely, taking a sip.

"Right. May I ask you when?"

"Here we go..." Kevin whispered to me, rolling his eyes.

"I was there in nineteen-nineteen, only for six months." Toni continued as calmly as before, unwavering. "The opportunity was offered to the most ennobled officers after the war."

"Ladies and gentlemen..." Cheryl leaned forward on the divan, smiling in fascination at Toni as if there were no one else in the room. "We stand before a brave war hero..."

"You can check my records and my medals if you wish, Mrs. Lodge." She spoke to Veronica, but blinked cheekily at my cousin.

Veronica, obviously, didn't like it at all.

"Fine." She grunted. "I have one more question."

"Ronnie, please, recompose yourself." Cheryl frowned, irritated by her insistence.

"It's fine, princess." Toni called her affectionately right in front of us. "Do it, Mrs. Lodge."

Veronica waited for a torturous second, like an experienced poker player waiting for the last card, the last move, her sharp eyebrow arching slowly.

Suddenly I just knew it.

"What kind of scandalous inadmissible shit are you trying to inflict on my house?"

_There it was._

The explosion rumbled and none of us could stop it anymore.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want you to know that I would never do with them exactly what the author did, for I believe they love each other too much, but unfortunately tragedy is always hovering over the lovers... I hope you continue to follow up on the upcoming emotions. :) 
> 
> See you guys soon.
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	7. Kiss Me Hard Before You Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 𝐈 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝...
> 
> 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒆, 𝑻𝒐𝒏𝒊.
> 
> 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆'𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒆.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go. :)
> 
> Warning: "Light" and brief description of attempted abuse and a graphic description of fatal injuries.
> 
> Wish you a good read.

 

"Ronnie, please..." Cheryl whimped again, starting to despair.

"You should be quiet." Veronica countered quickly, starting to burst.

"Pleas..."

"I said quiet, Cheryl!"

"That's enough!" Toni slammed the cup on the table, almost breaking the glass. "Don't you dare speak like that to her again! How dare you treat her with such impatience and disdain?! Who do you think you are?!"

"Stop, both of you!" Cheryl stood between them, her hands trembling in their chests. "Let's go home. Please, can we just go home?"

"I agree." I joined her, rising suddenly. "The wind on our faces will help with the heat. And we have to calm down."

"Who do I think I am?!" Veronica ignored us. "I'm her wife!"

"And I'm the woman she loves!"

A hideous silence hit us immediately and I felt that my heart would come straight through my mouth. Kevin held my hand, his eyes fixed on the three faces that starred that dreamlike tragedy, and I pressed his fingers to mine as if we were about to jump off a cliff together, most likely the precipice of which the three of them were already falling.

"Love...?" Veronica laughed, thundering. "You can only be out of your mind!"

"She never loved you."

"She married me, you brainless _Nobody_!"

None of them noticed, not even Kevin, who was watching closely, his eyes jumping from one to the other, but all I could see was Cheryl sitting on the divan between Toni and Veronica and shrinking more and more in herself, the nails stuck in the padding, the tears starting to escape her eyelids. I should have intervened, I should have stopped them, but I stood there, between the cross and the sword, watching everything.

"It was a mistake, a terrible mistake." Toni shook her head. "She was alone and Penelope was pressuring her, and I bet your family has their share in this plot."

Veronica howled in disdain. "I thought you were crazy with that circus car and that haunted castle, but now I suppose the diagnosis is much worse!"

"You can deny it how much you want to." Toni laughed, and that scorn and aggression frightened me, as if I were meeting another facet of her again. "But no matter how much power you and your dirty family have, nothing can buy the truth."

"The truth is Cheryl loved me when we got married and she still loves me." Veronica turned the whole cup of whiskey, clearing her throat. "And I love her as much as she loves me. I can commit some missteps, but I always come back for her at the end of the day. Isn't that so, Cheryl?"

It was the first time, since the heated argument began, that they recognized Cheryl's presence. She looked even worse, not just in tears, she was suddenly apathetic, staring at the emptiness of the gleaming floor, her shoulders slumped and her hands loose on the divan, as if she had entered a state of nonexistence by exhaustion.

"Princess..." Toni crouched down to touch her pale face.

"There was a night..." Cheryl whispered, still not looking at any of them. "There was a night you didn't come back..."

"What...?" Veronica frowned.

"That night on your father's fifty-first birthday... In the St. Clair Mansion..."

"Cheryl, don't!" Kevin suddenly threw himself at her, sitting down beside her and pulling her away from Toni's touch, holding her firmly but gently in her arms. "You don't have to do this. You owe them nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing!" The panic in his voice intrigued me and alarmed me, I had never seen him so afflicted.

"I was with you..." She ignored, her red eyes with tears coming up to meet Veronica's. "I was happy, Ronnie. But then you disappeared with that actor, Elio Grande, and I was alone..."

"Cheryl..." Kevin sighed wistfully.

I saw the horror in her eyes mirroring Toni and Veronica's eyes and I felt mine as acid and deadly liquid, trickling down inside me and almost making me cry.

"Nicholas came to cheer me up with champagne, and I convinced myself that you should have sent your good friend there to make up for your absence... What a fool, wasn't I?"

"Princess..." Toni held her face again, making her eyes meet, the tears already spilling uncontrollably into my friend's eyes as she shook her head in denial.

"I can only remember his breath and his hands. The noise of the door breaking. And this angel..." She turned to face Kevin, crying again, and it broke my heart again. "This angel in disguise saved me before it was too late, knocking down my aggressor, marking his baby's skin forever..." She held his hand and I remembered the scar I saw the day I met him at Mansion Lodge.

"And I would do it all over again." Kevin's smile was watery and sad.

Toni fell to her knees and held her face in both hands, tears flowing from both of them, Cheryl closing her eyes and leaning tenderly for the touch of her lover, as if she finally found the sweetness of that endless nightmare.

"Why...?" I finally saw that Veronica was crying too and I touched my own face to feel some lost tears. We were all crying. "Why didn't you tell me, Kevin? What about you, Cheryl?"

"Our mothers said I should never tell anyone." Cheryl sobbed. "I thought I could just forget, but the nightmares, the lonely nights... I just... I was afraid you'd blame me if I told you..."

"Blame you?!" She stood up, her hands trembling almost extended to her wife. "Is this the kind of woman you truly think I am?!"

"Why should I think otherwise about you?" She sounded bitter, but not angry, just sincere.

Veronica didn't reply that time and I could swear to see her biting her own tongue, beginning to walk in circles in the room. "I'm going to kill St. Clair."

"You have nothing to do with her anymore." Toni intervened, standing up. "I'll take care of your good friend."

"I'll tell you the last time, you _Nobody_ , she's my wife!" Veronica became furious again and I thought they were going to attack at any moment, although I was still lost in the story of Cheryl that broke my heart. "You say I left you alone, Cheryl, but where was this rogue when you needed her? I'll tell you where she was...!"

"Shut your mouth! You've done enough." Toni scolded.

"I'm not done! I know what you do and I know who you are, _Serpent scum_!"

In that moment, I saw fear in Toni's eyes. She pulled away and looked at Cheryl, who frowned at those words, and Veronica seemed to feel victorious for the first time that day, as if she were recovering that precious control.

"You know nothing about me." Toni murmured miserably.

"Are you sure about this?" Veronica laughed. "You may have fooled Cheryl when she thought you were a noble family officer, but you don't fool me. Tell her!" She stepped closer, almost causing Toni to retreat, her withdrawal at the last second putting them face to face. "Tell Cheryl where all your money comes from! Tell her you're part of one of New York's most dangerous gangs, that you've never had a penny in your pocket and become a criminal to pretend to be someone you're not!"

_Oh... The brass cane and the ring. The ruby serpent._

"I'm warning you..." Toni clenched one of her fists.

“No more excuses, you _Nobody_." Veronica shrugged, smirking. "Cheryl and everyone now knows you're a fraud."

"Cheryl..." Toni turned to her with wide, frightened eyes. "Princess, I swear I can explain everything to you, this is not..."

"I know." Cheryl rose from the divan to face Veronica. "I always knew."

"You knew and you let this... This creature touch you?!" Veronica exclaimed disgusted.

But my cousin ignored her, taking one of Toni's hands between hers, caressing her reverently. "I always knew you were different from us the moment you touched my hand at that party in the autumn of nineteen seventeen... You had hands that worked hard, hands calloused from the need to survive. I always knew. I don't care about what you do, where you came from or where you're going to..." More tears streamed from her face, her voice thin and husky, almost disappearing. "I just want to follow right by your side..."

I almost sighed at the smile that Toni sported, as if she were the luckiest and happiest of all the poor human beings. However, it didn't last as much as I wished to, for Cheryl launched the sentence and she couldn't hide the disappointment.

"But I can't say I've never loved Veronica." My cousin sniffed. "Because I would never lie to you..."

"Here are the facts, you _Nobody_." Veronica laughed in false superiority.

"Like you care...!" Cheryl whined at her.

"Of course I care...! I love you!" Veronica's laughter subsided, becoming embarrassing.

"Liar..." Toni growled, shaking her head.

"The difference between what I feel for Toni and what I felt for you is that no matter how many times she leaves me, I'll always forgive her when she comes back to me. And this kind of love, I can’t even..." Cheryl approached and boldly touched Veronica's face, and that was the first time I saw a caress between them. "You need to set me free, Ronnie. We will find a way to raise Josie in two homes and I will tell our families that it is my fault, but please, you have to let me go. You owe me..."

"I can take care of you..." Veronica shuddered, the little regain control fading from her hands for the last time, and her expression finally seemed something honest and vulnerable, as I had never seen before, though it was very gloomy. "Everything will be stopped, all the lovers, all the flaws..."

"Ronnie..." She cried even more, squeezing her eyes. "I've wished so many times to have been enough for you. And in the past these words would have captivated me, but you must understand that my heart was reclaimed the moment I discovered she was alive and here. She's the greatest love I've ever known. So please, Ronnie... Please, let me go..."

We all looked at each other and waited full of grief and expectation. I wanted to believe that there was enough kindness in my friend to attend to my cousin's request, I told myself, almost totally optimistic, that nobody could be so cruel and that there was in Veronica some sort of love for Cheryl that would allow her a single moment of altruism for her. Toni, on the other hand, seemed more grouchy than anxious, and I knew she hated seeing Cheryl having to ask Veronica for something, especially something as priceless as her freedom.

I was hopeful for both of us. And it is precisely because of this that I can say that in that summer of agonies and blessings I have learned to expect nothing from anyone, perhaps not even from myself, because disappointments are carmatical to the most enthusiastic gullible.

"Never." The sentence echoed in the room and I saw Cheryl paling even more, her fingers slipping weak and trembling from Veronica's face. "What would your mother think about this? What would Penelope do if she found out you left me for a _Nobody_?" She pulled away to pick up more whiskey and ice as if we were engaged in casual conversation.

"You..." Toni mentioned facing her with clenched fists.

"And don't even think about running away." Veronica flashed an unsteady smile. "Because I'll make sure you never see Josie, and you'll never be allowed to approach our daughter again."

"Ronnie..." Choking sobs made Cheryl's shoulders shrink.

"You're mine, Cheryl." She finished with tyranny. "And I'm not losing you to a _Nobody_."

When I think about that moment, I feel an inexplicable compassion for my friend Veronica, even though it was so unfair to do so considering what I was feeling for Cheryl and Toni. But what I saw was pride and inconsequence turning into despair and atrocity. Veronica was never blamed for her actions, because she could always do everything and always had everything. She never had to deal with the consequences of her mistakes and blunders. She never carried the weight of failure or the frustration of loss. She was untouchable until the day Toni Topaz came to color life inside Cheryl's heart again, and then the news of Betty's departure for San Francisco was too much for her to endure without losing control over herself.

I finally understood that she wouldn't give anything to Cheryl.

Neither loyalty, nor freedom.

"I hate you..." The morbid whisper made me abandon my ramblings, and Kevin tightened my wrist firmly at the sound of those words. Cheryl was staring at Veronica as if facing an infernal abyss, the flames whipping into her eyes.

"You what...?" Veronica's eyes widened.

"I hate you!" Cheryl thundered between her teeth. "You hear me?! I hate you, I hate you!" She stepped forward to attack her, but Toni held tight to her waist, dragging her to the door, whispering words we couldn't understand under my cousin's angry shouts, probably words of consolation to calm her. "Damn you, I hate you! I hate you more than the bastard who tried to abuse me, more than my mother, more than my father, more than my brother's murderer!" Toni was pulling her hard while her little shoes scraped the floor. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" Her skin was red, the veins in her neck bouncing, the hard tears dripping down, but she kept screaming and struggling in Toni's arms.

"I'll take you home." Toni spoke louder, holding her face by her chin so she would not hurt anyone or herself as she struggled to break free. "Please, princess, let me take you home..."

I still regret the thought that crossed my mind at that moment.

_You wanted fire, Toni..._

_There's the fire._

"I hate you forever, Veronica Lodge, and I swear I'll make the rest of your life a living hell!"

These were her last oaths before Toni abruptly shut the door and only the three of us remained with the echo of Cheryl's fury and the emptiness of hearts running frightened and melancholic. Kevin was still squeezing my wrist and Veronica was trying at all costs not to shed another tear, squatting in her dress and pouring herself more whiskey with a hint of mint, desperately drinking two whole cups, tearing her throat, while we were both stunned and lost in that hotel room.

Kevin finally let go of me and fell on an armchair as if an anvil struck his head, massaging his temples and closing his eyes. I wanted him to stand up for Cheryl, he who accompanied that marriage much more than I did. I wanted him to question Veronica, to force her to justify the reason she was hurting Cheryl that way since she never truly cared for her.

He did nothing.

Neither did I.

We just stood there in a grotesque and maddening silence. I tried to absorb the sounds of the city, the excitement of New York, the music in the bars, the clock in the room, the dripping ice block left by the chamberlain, Kevin's ivory sole shoes tapping the carpet, the contained sighs of Veronica. I tried listening to trumpets and confetti from a party in the past. I tried to hear a captivating laugh Cheryl gave in Toni's arms or a pacified smile that Toni gave to her. I tried to even hear my own voice screaming inside me.

But everything was just an oppressive silence, chewing and consuming us. I wondered about Toni and Cheryl and where they would be. Cheryl, eternally imprisoned in a loveless marriage, filled with bitterness and contempt, and Toni eternally imprisoned in a lost dream under a cherry tree in Louisville.

I remember staying there for hours, fantasizing to myself that Toni had managed to pacify Cheryl, that they shared one of those beautiful, feverish kisses to see, because of their devotion, and that everything would be alright, even with the dead end before the fate of Cheryl resting in the hands of Veronica. And I felt like a fool for fantasizing, but I couldn't help it, it was like they were the symbol of a love that didn't exist in any place or time in the whole world and my apathetic spirit needed this love, that wasn't mine, to survive.

Near dusk, Veronica stood up with her ruined makeup and whiskey-mint breath. "Well, my friends, I think we've had enough. She must be home waiting for me by now."

"Who?" I was too tired to understand anything, though it was obvious.

"Cheryl, of course. My wife. Who else would it be?" She raised her eyebrows, buttoning her own coat.

"How can you be so sure?" I asked without much real interest.

"Cheryl would never leave Josephine, my friend, stop being so innocent. And don't worry about her, she'll be fine. Soon she'll forget about that Nobody and I'll take care of her as it should be."

"For Christ's sake, can you just stop it?!" Kevin got up from the armchair he was languishing. "Can you cut the theatrical crap out of pretending you really care about Cheryl?"

"Control yourself, honey." She mocked. "Rage doesn't suit you."

"How could you do that?" His voice was sad and disappointed. "You broke her, Ronnie. You broke and buried her."

"I didn't lie when I said I love her." She defended herself. "Can you blame a woman for having her own way of loving?"

"Love...?" He cupped her face in his hands, shaking his head in a silent cry that I couldn't quite understand. "Good Lord forgive me, but what do you know about love, Veronica Lodge?"

He released her and went to the window, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. I wanted to go to him, I wanted to comfort him, kiss him and hold him and say that we would all be eventually fine.

But I didn't.

"I want to go home." Kevin finally turned to us, defeated. "Let's leave."

We followed him, because that was all we could do, and I couldn't even look at Veronica. I didn't recognize her. I didn't want to recognize her. I have seen men and women lose their lives in trenches and ambushes during the war, but never such gratuitous and permissible cruelty within that world of her. I had come out of a dream for a torment in a matter of days, where drastic changes made tragic fates, and all I wanted was to go back to the high summer in Lady Topaz's castle.

Toni's car was obviously not there, then we squeezed in the coupé, very reluctantly, because it seemed we couldn't bear to be near one of the others at that time, and we started to journeyed through the dark night.

We crossed the city and the Queensboro Bridge and I had never seen New York and Long Island so empty and silent, as if all the inhabitants and passersby knew what had happened in that room and refused to take part, disappearing and shutting up. However, as we crossed the valley of ashes, and I was almost grateful to think that I would soon be in my house, finally alone to meditate on everything, a gigantic mass of people and sobs and protests stopped us right in front of the Jones' workshop, and Veronica immediately abruptly stopped the car to investigate, once again forgetting about Cheryl.

"What is it now?" I sighed.

"I'll be right back." Veronica tightened her coat over her shoulders.

"Please..." Kevin rolled his eyes, slamming the door of the coupé.

"Just a second!" Veronica held out her hand impatiently and plunged into the crowd.

There was a strange smell in the air.

I should have realized, I felt it many times during the war.

_It smelled like death._

"Poor thing, poor thing!" An old lady in a shawl and flowery dress shouted.

"Monster, it could only have been the most terrible of the monsters ..." Lamented a beret worker in grimy clothes.

"Did Jughead pushed her? I heard their two arguing, I swear I heard..." Little boys whispered each other, slipping between the legs of the adults.

We continued to walk side by side, trying to get past the cluster, and Veronica frowned more and more as we moved forward.

"No! No! No, I'm doomed! My life is over! God has abandoned me!" Echoed Jughead's voice, surpassing all murmurs and moans.

"Someone bring gin to the man!" The owner of the bar next door commanded. "Come on, it's the only way he can calm down!"

"Let me pass..." Veronica ordered in a squeaky sigh, beginning to shove them all violently in her way. "God dammit, let me pass!"

That day was making me remember too much of the war, and that moment was no different. Because the death of fellow soldiers is something that you get used to sooner or later. The death of innocents, on the other hand, never gets easier.

Two policemen were trying to contain Jughead Jones, and he kept wriggling and screaming, a stream of tears rolling down his face. On the workbench in front of him, barely wrapped in a blanket, lay Elizabeth Jones's body, her eyes glazed open, blood dried in the holes of her nose and ears and mouth, as pale as the moon over us, blood and blood and bones exposed more blood.

_It smelled like death._

"Betty, my poor Betty!" Jughead cried aimlessly. "My poor love...!"

I had to look at Veronica and, if I thought I saw her desolate in the face of Cheryl's explosion in the hotel room, I was definitely not prepared for what I found. Her eyes stared at the body in a void so dense and terrifying that I almost pulled away from her. Her hand hovered colorlessly over the corpse, her fingers trembling. There were tears in those empty eyes, but no drops fell, as if they were crystallized in that untitled disgrace. Kevin covered his mouth and leaned on my shoulder, weak and pale, not being able to look much longer. And I couldn't do or say anything, all the chaotic emotions of that day terrifying inside me once and for all.

"You!" Veronica marched to the overcoat detective who was trying to get a concrete report on the incident.

"What's your name again?" The detective spoke to a young man with shaggy hair and broken teeth.

"Kurtz, sir."

"K... Urtz?" He picked up a notepad from his pocket. "How do you spell it, boy?"

"You!" Veronica scolded insistently.

"What do you want?" He turned to her impatiently.

"I demand to know what happened here." Her hands were trembling.

"A car hit her, don't you see?" He snorted.

"Hit her..." She whispered to herself.

"She ran to the road, right to the car. The driver fled."

"It was two cars." Kurtz reported. "One was going to New York and the other was coming from New York."

"Keep going, boy." The detective wrote every word.

"She ran to the road, right to the car." He repeated. "The car that came from New York hit her. It was too fast, the fastest I've ever seen around here..."

"It was a yellow car, I'll never forget." The owner of the bar intervened.

"Who are you?" The detective turned to him.

"Pop Tate, sir. I own the bar next door."

"I'm Arthur Adams, detective, and this case is mine. Did you see the accident?"

"I saw the car speeding and disappearing on the road. It was a yellow car, I'll never forget..."

Suddenly there was a shiver of shattering glass, and they all turned to see Jughead Jones, red and shaking, holding a half-broken bottle of beer, his nostrils gasping, his legs bent to run. "I know which car it was! I know very well which car it was!"

I felt Veronica tense and alarmed next to me, but it didn't last long. She wore her usual expression of power and control and strode boldly toward him, slamming the broken bottle that shook in his hands and holding him by the shoulders. "Control yourself, my good man. I just arrived from New York, how could I have been responsible? My coupé is out there. That damn car wasn't mine!"

"There's not a car like that, it doesn't exist, you came to fuel earlier, Mrs. Lodge, you came and..."

"Give me the gin." Veronica asked the owner of the bar, Pop Tate, who didn't hesitate to cross the crowd with the bottle and hand it to her. "Come on, my friend. Let's talk." She began to carry Jughead to the back shed.

"Where are you going? What are you two up to?" The detective frowned suspiciously.

"We're good friends." Veronica lied. "Someone needs to take care of him. Make your reports, Detective, so that the criminal is captured as quickly as possible and that poor woman can rest in peace."

Kevin continued to stare at the bench in the distance when Veronica disappeared from view in the back shad, though not before looking deeply into my eyes. I felt she was saying something to me at the same time I suspected what she would say something terrible to the widower.

_I knew._

Of course I knew.

I knew and I let it happen.

I heard unreadable whispers in the darkness of the back shed and did nothing to stop.

When I realized, Veronica was back, grabbing my arm and Kevin's with dark eyes, emptier than before, but a different emptiness, something perverse and vindictive and heavy, crossing the crowd as the detective wrote down names and explanations. She pushed us into the car and hit the accelerator. In the darkness, where only the sound of the wheels on the stones and gravel could be heard, no car or soul alive around us and Kevin asleep by the fatigue and stress on my shoulder, she looked at me for a second and began to cry.

"Bastard..." A sob escaped her. "She died alone and with pain on that road. Alone and in pain... Oh, my God!"

 

Veronica didn't mind stopping at the mansion, quietly collecting herself and ordering her old driver, Smithers, to take me home, Kevin clinging to me making it clear that we were not going to part. I thought about asking for Cheryl, but I swallowed my frustrations and decided that I would take care of him for the rest of the night. I had never seen him so upset and that was just another of the tremendous scenes that broke my heart that night.

But there was more to come and I didn't know how much I could handle.

I asked Smithers to leave us on the lane leading to Toni's castle and I leaned sleepily on my shoulder to walk. I didn't want anyone approaching my dear friend's house, even if I suspected she had committed murder, even by accident. The thought tingled my spine, but I had to be hopeful, as hopeful as she used to be.

When I found her in front of my house, sitting on the porch with a rag of blood on her hands and her eyes fixed on the moonlight, I ordered Kevin to enter as gently as I could, and then I simply lost.

"You killed that woman." I accused her without delay.

"She's really dead, eh?" She sighed. "I wasn't sure. I told Cheryl..."

"Toni, she's dead. Dead!" I scolded. "How did this happen?"

"I tried to stop, mon trésor." She stared at me so sincerely that I felt immediately foolish and unarmed. "I tried to take the steering wheel of her hands and swerve the car, but..." She choked, shaking her head in regret.

The truth hit me bitterly.

"Cheryl was driving..."

"She thought it would calm her down after what happened at the Hotel." She nodded. "That woman ran to us and Cheryl saw her, I swear she tried to dodge her, but another car was coming from the other direction and she gave up in the last second. I tried to avoid it. I even stepped on the emergency brake on my side. But it was too late. I felt the impact the moment I stepped."

"Oh, Cheryl..." I whined in disgrace.

"If anyone finds out, I'll tell them it was me." She determined, a flicker of certainty and courage passing through her eyes. "She doesn't agree, but she doesn't need to know. You must take care of her tonight."

"What?!" I exclaimed. "She's here?"

"Lower your voice, please. She couldn't stay the night in that mansion, nor in my house. Bring her daughter to that conversation... I don't know where she is anymore, mon trésor."

"What do you mean?"

"It's all my fault." She admitted as a child that made an innocent mistake, full of good intentions, ashamed and disoriented. "I should have taken her away when I had the chance. I'm no better than them, her parents, her wife..."

"Is she going to stay with Veronica?"

"She can't leave her daughter, the child needs her, but she doesn't know what to do. I'm afraid she can hurt herself if she continues to stand and live with that woman, and now everything is out of my hands, mon trésor. I ruined it."

"You didn't ruin anything. She just needs some time to think." I tried to be optimistic for her. "I'm sure we can work this out."

Suddenly she stood up and smiled, and I was surprised she could still open that magnanimous, priceless smile. She hung the bloody cloth on the belt of her pants, walked up to me in the darkness of my garden and laid a hand gently on my face.

"You're a good friend, Fangs Fogarty. Maybe the best I've ever had and more than I truly deserve."

"Toni, I..." I sighed, moved, my reciprocal feeling for her exploding in my chest for fear of her fate, wanting to offer some kind of protection even if I had no power or strength. "You need to get out of the city."

"Out of the city, mon trésor?" She raised her eyebrows.

"You can cross the country, go to Canada or maybe Mexico... Or to Europe!" I touched her face back, it was the first time I had shown my affection with a touch. "You can try Scotland or..."

"I told you I don't have a scottish uncle." She smiled as if trying to get around the silly ideas of a deluded boy.

"You can't stay here, Toni. They'll track down your car, they'll find you."

"I'm not leaving without her." She calmly denied it. "I've come too far."

"You don't even know if she's going to decide to stay with you!" I exclaimed my despair, even though I didn't want to be cruel or undermine her hopes.

"You're as stubborn as she is, aren't you? "She smiled and pulled away, hands in her pockets, her eyes rising to the moon glinting upon us. "Have you ever loved someone, Fangs?"

"I..." I hesitated, unsure if I could say I was in love with Kevin Keller. "I don't know. I suppose so."

"Have you ever loved someone so intensely, so irrevocably and unstoppably, that your whole life has been defined by this love? The kind of love that suffocates your lungs, but without which you feel like you can't breathe? The kind of love that saves your soul, dawns your darkness, gives you purpose, makes you dream, enlightening you with fire and gunpowder to the point that you feel Atlas itself, holding a burdensome sky on your shoulders, and suddenly, with a a single red-lipped smile, a single touch or a single kiss, the sound of a high voice, giving you power to hold this sky in the palm of your hand?"

She finished vigorously, staring into her own hands, making my heart throb in my throat and bringing tears to both our eyes.

"I don't..." I couldn't finish it, stunned.

"That's how I love Cheryl Blossom." A single tear rolled down her pretty face. "She's that sky, Fangs, my sky. My sky filled with birds. And I'll hold her, no matter how much it weighs on me."

Some impulse cried inside me and I stepped forward to hug her. It was the first time we shared a hug. Her arms tightened around me and I felt her breathing deeply against me with her tiny body, carrying a mind and a heart so huge with dreams and love. I let ourselves soothe the chill of the night in that moment where we no longer needed to fight our consciences and my plea sounded for the last time.

"Please, Toni, I promise I'll take care of her and we'll sort this out, you just can't stay around for a while, we can do this together."

"One day more." She decided, pushing away with her thumb the tears I did not realize had escaped my eyes. "One day more and I promise to leave for a while. If she loves me and believes in us, one day will be enough for her to come. If she doesn't choose me, I disappear forever."

"You promise?"

"I promise, mon trésor, my good friend."

"Just one day."

"One day more." She held out her little pinkie to me and I felt like we were two children sealing a silly promise in vain.

At the moment of absolute silence in absorption, we heard a muffled cry coming from inside my little house and Toni frowned sadly, a long sigh of anguish echoing through the night. Cheryl was probably awake, and I hoped Kevin was comforting her.

"I probably should..." I pointed to the door.

"You must." Toni nodded solemnly.

"You'll be fine, right?"

"She will come, mon trésor." She smiled at me, her eyes full of hope. "Let it be in the last seconds before midnight, but she will come. She loves me. And I love her. More than anything. What is more valuable than this?"

_She was so..._

_It was impossible not to believe her words._

"Good night, Toni."

"Good night, mon trésor."

I watched as she walked away slowly, climbing to her castle, her eyes admiring the moonlight again. And suddenly another impulse consumed me, watching her walk along the lawn with elegance and tranquillity, as if no tragedy hung over us, as if everything were really going to be fine just because she believed it would be so.

"Toni!" I called and she turned gently to me. "You're wrong. You're not like them. Veronica, or the Blossoms, not even like FP or the people who come to your parties. You're different from everyone." I stopped for a second to try to smile at her the way I felt she used to smiled at me. "And you're worth more than all of them together!"

She smiled again and my lapse of brave honesty made me sincerely glad.

"You're a good man, Fangs. Never forget that."

She disappeared in the dark and little did I know how quickly I would forget those words.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye, sweet Betty. ): 
> 
> Here we are at the crossroads. 
> 
> See you guys soon. :) 
> 
>  
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	8. Over the Love of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In October of nineteen seventeen, in the arms of a windy, magical autumn, under a beautiful cherry tree in Louisville, an aristocrat and a soldier discovered and shared something rare and precious. Something that most people never find, and that some lose their minds trying to find or trying to overcome when they find it unilaterally..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Let's do this... I imagine that it was inevitable for the reader to be concerned with this part of the story. Everyone who spoke here was kind to me, so I want to leave this note. 
> 
> Everything that happens from here to the end of this story is valuable to the message. I tried to think of new paths, but I think I couldn't run from this, I didn't want to run from this. I hope you can enjoy these last three chapters and stay with me until the end of the journey. Thank you again for all your support..
> 
> Note: Graphical descriptions of violence and light smut on this chapter. 
> 
> Wish you a good reading. :)

 

_In October of nineteen seventeen, in the arms of a windy, magical autumn, under a beautiful cherry tree in Louisville, an aristocrat and a soldier discovered and shared something rare and precious. Something that most people never find, and that some lose their minds trying to find or trying to overcome when they find it unilaterally. I like to imagine them under that tree. Toni would put a flower in Cheryl's red hair and Cheryl would lay Toni's head on her lap, caressing her so she wouldn't think about what was waiting for her on the battlefield in the middle of the ocean. Toni would take off the velvet gloves Cheryl wore all the time when she was younger and would kiss her immaculate fingers and Cheryl's lips on Toni's palms would be like a protective spell for her when she was far away. And they would forget who they used to be, they would abandon the titles, no more aristocracy, no more duty._

_There was no place in the world for a love like that._

 

As I predicted when I said goodbye to Toni, Kevin was holding Cheryl when I found them on my couch. She was curled up, barefoot, her face reddened, her cheeks swollen from crying. Kevin said nothing. I think he knew there was nothing to say.

"Please try to get some sleep." I said, touching his shoulder. "The guest room is the second door on the left in the hallway."

"I want to be with her." He whispered.

"I know." I leaned in and kissed his forehead and wished I had done it before, whenever I could. "I'll stay with her. Tomorrow I'll make a good breakfast and you two will feel better."

He smiled at me, but it was different. There was no charm or wit, he was so tired, he was so sad, but that smile was sincere and warmed my heart on that cold night after a hot day. I took his place and Cheryl didn't protest. Maybe she wasn't even recognizing the presence of anyone, letting herself be consoled by any touch, as if she couldn't even feel it.

Being outside watching the magic crumble continued to tear my heart apart. It seemed to me that Toni didn't understand that Cheryl would give up everything for her, because there must have been something very personal that she hid, something about only feeling worthy of Cheryl if she were part of her aristocratic world. And Cheryl didn't understand that all Toni needed was a lie, a little lie, an assertion that her love had always belonged to Toni and only to her. But Cheryl couldn't lie. When we were young, she used to create chaos with her words, but she never lied, quite the contrary, these words of hers came in truths so dense and severe, that she seemed almost innocent of her voracity.

And in that moment, anyway, it didn't matter anymore. It was too late to give up, it was too late to lie. Veronica, the experienced and notorious winner, threw the last card and destroyed all possible strategies and attempts.

Toni Topaz loved Cheryl Blossom too much for an optimistic outlook, but I tried to do it for her. I think Cheryl was forced to love, temporarily, Veronica Lodge. She needed to love her somehow to accept being confined to that marriage. She had to love Veronica, even a fragile and ugly love, to give her daughter a good life. She needed to love Veronica to survive. And when Toni came back, when Toni rekindled that fire, she didn't have to fight or pretend anymore. She faced the storm and opened her heart to Toni again and she could never turn back.

"Do you remember when we were kids and Nana Rose took the three of us to the circus?" Cheryl's voice echoed in the darkness of the living room.

"I remember." I whispered back, trying not to disturb her.

"Jason said I would be happy, the happiest of all the girls, but it was all illusory, wasn't it? Just like the circus..."

"He wanted the best for you." I touched her soft red hair and she cringed even more, her knees bent, squeezed, her body in a contorted circle of restrained pain and desperation. "We both wanted the best for you..."

"Toni wants the Cheryl she loved in Louisville." Her tears fell on my shirt. "The Cheryl that doesn't exist anymore. I don't exist anymore and for this she can't love me..."

"Please, don't say that." A lump formed in my throat reminding me of Toni's words about how she felt for my cousin. "Toni will love you, no matter who you've become, and regardless of who you choose..."

"Choose...?" She stood up suddenly, her arms trembling, trying to find firmness and strength to hold herself.

"You have a choice to make, cousin." I tried to be subtle in my tone of voice with that hard honesty needed. "Veronica or Toni."

"A choice?" She whispered, more tears falling. I wondered if someday those tears would stop. "What makes you think I have a choice? And..." She seemed suddenly startled, pulling away from me on the couch. "Does Toni think I have a choice?"

"Well... She didn't say..."

"Does she truly believe that I can or I need to ponder this, that I'm thinking about my possibilities? She thinks I'm in control?"

"Calm down, cousin, please, she didn't s..."

"I need to tell her!" She surprised me, getting up immediately, her eyes widening, rubbing her hands over her face to stop the flow of tears. "She needs to know that it isn't true! She needs to know that Veronica was wrong, she's not Nobody, she's everything, she's the greatest love I've ever known!"

"Cheryl!" She tried to run to the door, but I caught her, pulling her by the wrist to lock her in my arms. I felt stunned at her words, that desperate voice echoing inside me, and she began to cry again in my chest.

"I love her so much, Fangs..." She sobbed. "So much.."

For a moment I thought I would join her in that endless cry. She had been involved in a manslaughter, she was imprisoned at Veronica's whims, she revived the worst memory of her life that day, but still everything she wanted was to run barefoot through the cold night only to tell Toni that she loved her, that she was everything, that she would always choose her if she could. And I couldn't measure the meaning of loving and desiring so much someone at that point.

_Oh, poor little bird..._

I wondered if Toni would also be alone in that majestic castle longing to come to her. I carried her into her arms and took her to my room, the sleep beating her the moment I put her to bed. Even though I knew it wouldn't be enough, I lit a small candle in the hope that she would not have those terrible nightmares.

"We'll sort this out together, cousin." I kissed her forehead. "I promise."

I crawled out of the room and closed the door. In a few hours it would dawn and I didn't know if I would be able to sleep, wondering if Toni would keep her word and whether Cheryl would be there when I woke up. I convinced myself to go to the guest room to pick up a pillow and try to nap for some time on the couch, because that was all I could do at that moment, all out of my hands, all out of control.

Stumbling in the dark, just the faint light of moonlight in the window, I almost hit my head on the shelf of the closet when a husky, somber voice caught me off guard.

"Why did you lie to her?" Kevin came up behind me, making me flinch, knocking over the pillows and sheets in the closet.

"What are you talking about?" I swallowed with his proximity.

"Why did you lie to Cheryl?" He folded his arms.

"I didn't."

"Yes, you did. You told her we'd sort this out together."

"And we will."

"No, we won't." He insisted. "You know that everything is doomed now. It's too late for you to try to change it."

"What do you mean?" I frowned.

"You have seen all this happen! You are prudent and clever, you have seen all this coming! And you did nothing, the loyal friend Fangs Fogarty who didn't choose oa side and made himself a scarecrow!"

"I chose a side." I defended myself. "I chose Toni."

"And what did you do about it? Nothing! The world happens and you keep watching! Everyone is inside a runaway train and you are unable to pull the brake!"

"I..."

"You knew it would end like this! How could you not know? You helped Cheryl, but you also knew about Mrs. Jones, you knew her, you played on both sides, aware of it or not."

"..."

"You let that happen. You could have stopped it. What did Veronica talk to Jughead in the workshop? What is going on? What's going to happen to Cheryl now?"

"..." He wanted all the answers I just didn't have.

"You're not going to say anything?!"

I looked for a moment at the clock on the old headboard of the bed and it was past midnight.

"Today is my birthday." I remembered from nowhere and that was all I could say to him. "Twenty seven years."

The news seemed to disarm him. He sighed deeply, those beautiful green eyes turning sad and distant from me. I wanted to reach him. I wanted him not to feel sad anymore.

I wanted to be Atlas and hold him like myworld in the palm of my hand.

"Happy birthday, Mr. Fogarty." He smiled and that was my first and only birthday present.

"I don't know what you want from me." I admitted, yielding to the exhaustion of countless feelings that I couldn't even count.

Frustrated by the silence, I picked up the sheet and the pillow and left, leaving him alone with a long-awaited question, perhaps for both of us. When I was preparing to fall asleep in the small, uncomfortable couch, however, his footsteps echoed in the hallway and he emerged in the living room with wide eyes and panting breath. I sat disheveled, shirtless, looking at him with an inevitable defeat, for I was too tired to keep fighting. But he came and leaned over me, holding my face in his soft hands, his eyes searching and plunging into mine, a sigh from his sweet breath hitting my nose.

"I want you." He whispered. "I want you, you silly little pigeon."

And then he finally kissed me. And my whole world changed in a glimpse, in the blink of an eye, like the flapping of a hummingbird's wings in the spring, and the fire that burned my lungs made me think of Toni and Cheryl, though I didn't want to think about nothing more when he scratched my shoulder and opened my mouth with his thumb, pulling my jaw, the noble commander of all my repressed emotions.

I will never forget what it was like to be inside him, to lick his sweat, to kiss those flattened lips, his hands scratching my back, pulling me by my belt, covering gently his mouth so his sounds didn't wake my cousin in my room. In the middle of the living room, next to my grate fireplace, where a while ago Cheryl and Toni relived their pure love, I consumed mine as frantically as possible, as if we had both longed and waited for so long that we could no longer avoid, for there would never be the right time for us. And I felt rude and unworthy of the passion he offered, too engrossed in torments that weren't even mine to give myself completely to him as I wished I had.

But even though I was confused and overwhelmed, he kissed my chin, nestled in my chest and fell asleep as if we were a cliché couple on a quiet night at the end of an ordinary summer.

 

Surprisingly, I slept like a baby. I remember dreaming of a different world, where the four of us were different people in different places. I walked arm in arm with Kevin over a sunny, cheerful little street, and Toni walked arm in arm with Cheryl from the other direction, and we passed each other with a hat-compliment, following our trails without tragedies, without debris.

I woke up with the softness of a kiss on my jaw and opened my eyes to find Kevin looking at me, his chin resting on my chest, his big, beautiful green eyes staring at me. But the smile, of course, was the most beautiful to see, like waking up in paradise. His hair was spiky, his flattened lips were swollen, and he looked relaxed as I had never seen before. And I couldn't help a deep sigh, wishing we could stay that way forever, just in our pants, lying on the couch, caressing each other. I had forgotten all the chaos around us, he finally had all my attention and that allowed me to fantasize about a life with him. It seemed rushed and precipitated, but how could I avoid it when an angel with green eyes and gentle voice and refined humor smiles at me like that?

_Speaking of humor..._

"What happened last night?" He frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"I was so stressed and confused... I can't remember perfectly..."

"What?" I swallowed, wondering if for a second I read the wrong signs and took advantage of his fragility. "What does that mean?"

But then he smiled mischievously and bit his lip. "It means maybe you should remind me of what we did..."

I didn't know if I wanted to kiss him or give a ear tug on him because of the foolishness of the joke, but that smile made me roll both of us on the couch and cover him with kisses and tickles, and again I felt we could be a cliché couple, playing and loving each other with no consequences to be weighed. We stood there, the clock over the fireplace past ten, and neither of us willing to stand up and face the effects of the day before.

"Are you hungry?" I decided to ask when his stomach fluttered over me.

"It's probably just butterflies." He guessed it and laughed, tapping the tip of my nose. "I could eat. But you should..."

"Check Cheryl." I sighed. "I know. I'll go see her and make some pancakes."

He gave me one last kiss and helped me up, deliciously sore and cheerful, as if nothing could go wrong on that cloudy late summer day. I walked and almost tripped over the furniture, not wanting to take my eyes away from him as he stretched and went to the window, the daylight around him like a true angel.

_Angel in disguise... That's what Cheryl called him._

I knocked on the door, but got no response or sound. Returning to feel absolutely worried about her, I decided to open a crack to try to wake her up, but to my complete amazement, the bed was made and there was no one in the room, not even her little shoes that I placed next to the bedside table.

"Is Toni getting visitors?" Kevin exclaimed from the room.

"Visitors?" I closed the bedroom door and walked back to the living room. "It would be news, she hasn't received anyone but Cheryl for weeks."

"It must be some of her business partners, then." He shrugged and turned to smile at me.

I couldn't explain what moved me. I felt a tightness in my heart, I swear I felt something very strong and dreadful to seize me, making me run to the window to find out what he was talking about.

That's when I saw...

And sometimes I still feel the tightness in my heart when I think about it.

I saw the Ford parked in front of Toni's castle, the door open, the headlights on. I recognized the car that Elizabeth Jones was working on earlier in the summer, the day I met her. And my legs trembled, my throat dried, I felt weak and doomed and terrified.

"K-Kevin..." I stuttered.

He touched my shoulder, alternately looking at the car and at me, confused. "Honey? Fangs, what happened?"

"C-c-car-r..." I pointed to the parked car, but could not answer properly.

I couldn't speak.

I couldn't move.

I shivered like a willow in the autumnal wind in Kevin's arms and my world turned upside down again.

"Fangs, you're cold!" Kevin was afflicted, holding tight to my face.

"Jughead." I finally managed to gasp. "That car belongs to the workshop man."

Kevin looked out the window and his eyes widened. "Go get Cheryl."

"She's not in the room..." I whispered disoriented.

"She what?!" He squeezed my terrified face.

"She's not in the room!"

He looked at the kitchen. "The back door is open...!"

From that there was no time to think. In fact, there was no time for anything. Time was like the sand of Toni's beach, sinking beneath our feet as we ran together, barefoot and shirtless, ignoring the sharp gravel and the rough ground on the way. I didn't know what to expect and I never felt so afraid, especially for Toni. I saw the fury of that wounded man a night ago and I didn't even want to guess what he was capable of. I secretly wished Cheryl had gone back to her life in East Egg, trying not to think in another life to worry about.

But I also knew...

I should have done more.

I should have insisted Toni leave that same night.

I should have let Cheryl go with her that night, and maybe they'd be already far away by morning.

I should have told them that Veronica had a moment alone with Jughead Jones that night in the valley of ashes.

I didn't. I just didn't.

It was all a blur. Ten years later, it's still nothing more than a blur. A sequence of despair and pain running through my mind, some defense mechanism – or perhaps torture – slowing the time before my eyes, my heart throbbing in my throat and ears, and all that I valued the most turning into dust in the wind that would bring the autumn. Kevin and I sneaked past the castle walls and statues, peering through the windows to find a clue to where Jughead or Toni were, or perhaps to the ruin of my panic, my cousin Cheryl. The silence that weighed on us seemed to mourn for me and I pressed my hand into Kevin's as hard as I could.

We circulate the ground to finally find some sign of life. Walking down, almost leveled to the steps, we climbed slowly and attentively the wide staircase leading to the pool and we saw Toni up there in a nice lavender suit, with her back to the stairs, absorbed talking on the phone, standing on the threshold of the gigantic doors of doric columns, looking at the grand salon. Toni's loyal man, the man in the leather coat and bowler hat, was smoking on the highest porch of the castle, watching the mist over the estuary.

On the other side of the bay, the reddish light blinked incessantly.

I had the ordinary impression of being out of my body, everything passing before my eyes like a movie I was part of the cast. Still hidden, I watched Jughead coming down the west side staircase with a pistol in his trembling hands and a paradoxical expression of fear and determination.

Kevin's words from the last night rumbled like a thunder inside me again.

_You know everything is doomed now._

_It's too late for you to try to change it._

_You know everything is doomed now._

_It's too late for you to try to change it._

_It's too late._

I tried to scream, but my voice disappeared.

I tried to run, but my legs were like lead stuck to the marble step.

"Enough, Malachai!" Toni exclaimed on the phone, unable to hear any other sound. "You tell Penny to find a small town or I'll personally go to Philadelphia to take care of this problem. You will not put my Serpents in danger. I don't care about what FP will..."

That's when I saw _her_.

Cheryl Blossom emerging from the other direction, from the east side staircase. And my mind reproduced the incident that took the life of Elizabeth Jones. Two cars, one in each direction, one body in the middle about to be hit, unaware of what was coming. My cousin was running. The blue frock coat of cuffs, shoulder pads and two rows of gold buttons, probably victorian, Toni's favorite coat that was given to me and that she must have picked up in my room, floating on her shoulders.

_Everything as a movie._

Time slowing down for the gran finale.

When I looked up, the cigar of Toni's loyal man was falling and he was running from the porch.

When I looked to the left, Jughead had his finger on the trigger.

When I looked ahead, Toni was pulling the phone away from her ear.

When I looked to the right, Cheryl was still running with one of her hands raised, as if she was trying to reach her own reddish light of hope on the other side.

"CHERYL!" Kevin's horrified scream tore the invisible veil that imprisoned me and all the sounds echoed around me like bombs exploding. The trigger, the telephone on the hook, Cheryl's little shoes, the call of Toni's loyal man from the grand salon.

_It was too late._

Cheryl ran to the mad man and tried to push his arm with the pistol, but it was in vain. She buried her nails in his face and he shrieked, leaning over. Her other arm hit his hand, but it only served him to point the pistol down toward her and I heard, in the middle of the chaos, that soft, dry sound of the trigger.

A trigger sound I've heard countless times during the war.

But it never tore me apart as much as it did in that moment.

"CHERYL DON'T!" Kevin roared again and hurried up the stairs, my body involuntarily following him, stumbling on the steps.

_It was too late._

The second Toni awakened to the sound and the fight, and turned in alarm to see, the shot echoed in our ears, so loud and horrifying that the birds drew desperate flight from the trees around the castle. But one bird was left behind. A single, majestic, innocent bird, rolled wounded on the ladder of the pool, the blue frock coat hovering on the steps, blood sprawling on the marble and darkening her crimson dress, her skin paling further.

Kevin screamed and shouted in denial, falling on his knees to take her in his arms, searching for the bullet hole. But I was paralyzed, mortified, and my eyes could only rise again to the whole disgrace of that horror. I saw, in that moment, the most frightening face of my dear friend Toni Topaz. I saw the genuineness, the purity, the delight for life disappearing before my eyes on hers. I saw the dream fading and the reddish light of hope vanishing in the vibrant red of Cheryl's blood slipping away in a unstoppable stream.

I saw the nobility turning into madness.

Jughead was stupefied, trembling colorless. "I didn't want to... I wasn't... I'm sorry..." He stammered, tears streaming down his phantasmagoric face.

Composed and concentrated, Toni pulled two pistols from the belt on her back and began firing mercilessly, frantically. With each shot he staggered back, choking, trying to stand and pointed his pistol at her, pulling the trigger again, and all I could do was hear Kevin's deafening cry as the bullets flew from side to side, the man staggering and Toni standing upright. She fired both pistols at the same time and kept firing as he fell bloodied, dying at her feet. And even as the bullets were gone and only the hollow sound echoed, she kept firing on some kind of deranged frenzy.

When she finally stopped, she looked down the stairs, where Kevin was crying, trying to stop the bleeding, but she didn't move. We were paralyzed together and our eyes met for a moment, unrecognizable and unrecoverable. The man in the leather coat and bowler hat appeared at the doors of the grand salon, panting, filling the silence that tormented us.

"What have you done...?" Kevin whimpered, pressing Cheryl in his arms. "You fool girl, what have you done...?"

Cheryl smiled at him, her white teeth dyed red.

"Why are you smiling?!" He snarled. "Stop it! S-stop...!"

“I did it...” She whispered, her eyes looking lost for something, perhaps for Toni, who watched from a distance, paralyzed before the corpse of Jughead Jones, guns clutched in her hands, her eyes empty. "I was brave, Kev. I thought I'd be a coward forever, but I was brave..." She stopped and finally focused her eyes on the staircase, looking at Toni as if she were the most beautiful existence in the world and they would finally be together forever once she found herself brave. "And you know what, my darling? It was worth it..." She shuddered and spat blood on his shirt, a stifled sneeze, her eyes squeezed and her brows furrowed in pain, but the smile intact, perfect, perpetual.

"Stop being so dramatic and morbid, you'll be fine, we'll get help and you'll get better and we'll drink tea and I'll tell you how I fell in love with your cousin and we'll laugh on the divan, you'll get better!" He kept saying desolate, probably more to himself than to her, his fingers trembeling beneath the wound on her chest, right on her heart.

The confession of his passion didn't even reach my consciousness.

"Kev, she's..." She kept whispering, her eyes losing focus. "She's so cool... She has always been so cool... The cool girl in bright shirts and pink-brown hair... My lost soldier... My mysterious Lady... Mon trésor... My great savior... The... The Great Toni Topaz..."

I thought Toni would go for her.

I wanted to ask, to beg her to do it.

But when I looked at her again, the pistols slipped from her hands and she fell on her knees, pressing her fingers into her chest. That's when I realized, when my own heart shattered, the man in the leather coat and bowler hat running desperate for her, holding her before she fell on the marble.

That couldn't be happening. It didn't seem real. It seemed like an act, some Broadway drama, the castle as our stage, ink as that river of blood, death as protagonist. I wished I was sleeping, trapped in a nightmare, delirious, losing my mind, anything but that.

Only when I heard her gasp in the arms of her loyal man my feet finally obey and I stumbled up the stairs to fall beside them, taking her in my own arms, her face losing its color, her eyes misty, the warm blood sliding on my fingers, realizing the truth I wanted to be delirium.

My friend, Toni Topaz, maybe the best I've ever had...

Perishing before my eyes.

_There is never enough time..._

"It's fine..." She coughed red. "I'm fine..."

"Go get help!" I yelled at the man, also thinking of my cousin perishing in Kevin's arms, and I used the purple silk scarf from her lapel suit to stanch the bleeding on her chest. "Hurry!"

"Stay right where you are, Sweet Pea." She whispered quietly, those lovely eyes shining for me

Sweet Pea... I'd never heard his name before.

He obeyed resignedly, showing for the first time some kind of emotion. And it was pure sorrow.

"What are you saying?!" I begged, the tears already rolling on my face.

"You must kill me when I'm already dead." Toni proclaimed simply.

"You're not dead! You're going to be fine! You both will! Cheryl saved your life, you can't give up now!"

"Fangs, my good friend..." She sighed and I could never understand how she could be so calm, the flow of blood still leaving her body unstoppably. "She saved my life long before today. My life began when I met that redheaded girl in Louisville. And now my life ends when she's gone."

"You can't do this! Stop talking like that, you can't!" I cried even more, my tears flying in that beautiful suit. "What kind of Romeo and Juliet nonsense is that?! The fantasy is over, Toni! Wake up! You're here! You... You can't!"

And then her eyes changed again. Once faded and revengeful, when I thought that everything genuine had disappeared, they glowed with restrained tears and I felt all the anguish of the world within it, as if that castle of fairy tales collapsed inside them in the reflection of all the lost dreams. But she was still Toni, Lady Topaz, that brilliant and powerful existence that filled my world with hope.

Toni tilted her head and sighed softly. "I'm so tired, mon trésor. The sky is gone and with it the birds, and I can't breathe." She choked suddenly in my arms, blood dripping from the edges of her lips, a solitary tear rolling. "My soul, my dreams and purposes, the fire, everything is gone, can't you understand?" Trembling fingers touched my cheek. "Everything is gone..."

"Milady..." Sweet Pea murmured hoarse, kneeling there, taking off his hat, a stray strand of short black hair sliding across his forehead.

"You need to stop talking like that..." I insisted. "What would Cheryl think of you?!"

"What do you know about, Fangs?" She held my jaw firmly and growled between her teeth, another tears rolling in agony. "I never had anything. And that girl under the cherry tree in Louisville made me believe that I could have it all. I've never loved anyone but her. I love nothing but her and the dream that this love made me build..."

"You..." I whimpered, my last strength fading from the pain she exuded. Her world was shattered and I was trying to pick up the pieces. "You can't go... You hav..."

"Fangs, please, stop..." She interrupted and breathed exhaustedly, closing her eyes, the weight of the body dying on me. "You can call it madness, fantasy, call it whatever you want. But I need to believe that there's something beyond this life where she will be in my arms again, where I will find her and I will never lose her again. So please... Please, let it happen." She tried to pluck the scarf I was pressing on the wound. "Let me go."

"I can't... I can't..." I lost the air, feeling stunned by the weight of those words.

"Everything is fine, mon trésor, don't you see?" She smiled for me, and God damn me for believing that her smile was still the same, genuine and wonderful, priceless and unparalleled. "She came for me. She chose me. Me, Fangs..."

Downstairs, Cheryl breathed her last sigh and Kevin fell into despair, crying and claiming for a help that would never come. And Toni squeezed her eyes, as if Cheryl's death were truly her death as well, as if she could feel it when life left my cousin's body, as if it were her own life being extinguished.

And it was.

It truly was.

I was taken back that afternoon at the Hotel, where Veronica condemned Cheryl by denying her freedom, I imagined my cousin as the caged bird, whistling melancholy and loneliness. And in that moment I imagined Toni exactly the same way, imprisoned, solitary, whistling a song that would reverberate through a the entire castle but that no one would hear.

"You can go, Toni. You can rest now." I whispered in tears.

And that smile of hers...

That smile that held everything that existed in the whole world...

"Your dream..." I smiled at her proudly for the last time. "You made it, Toni. You made it."

When Sweet Pea gently pushed me by my shoulder to take my place, as if he knew I couldn't watch her die, he held her as the most precious thing existing. She turned her head weakly for the last time. to face Cheryl in Kevin's arms. "Oh, my princess..." She whispered to herself. "Wherever you are... I'm so sorry..."

"Milady..." Sweet Pea leaned over her.

"Thank you, Sweet Pea..." She smiled at him.

Again I saw that frowning man express some emotion, his eyes filling with tears that he tried to contain at all costs. "It was my honor, Toni."

A deadly silence stretched and it seemed we would be trapped there forever. Like a coward, I closed my eyes and all I could absorb was the sound of a sigh and seconds later the aggressive sobs of Sweet Pea colliding with Kevin's desperate screams.

One bullet into Cheryl's heart to bury the courage.

One bullet into Toni's heart to bury the dream.

And at dusk on the last day of summer, surrounded by three lifeless bodies and two men in tears, all I could do was to fall hunched over the marble of an enchanted castle and sob until my body was no longer able to expel my pain.

_In October of nineteen seventeen, in the arms of a windy, magical autumn, under a beautiful cherry tree in Louisville, an aristocrat and a soldier discovered and shared something rare and precious. Something that most people never find, and that some lose their minds trying to find or trying to overcome when they find it unilaterally._

But there was no place in the world...

On the eve of a sombre autumn, two bullets to bury the greatest love I've ever known.

I thought I could save them...

But I didn't.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was quite difficult to opt for this path and I'm sorry if it ruins the story for you or if you feel this disrespects the original work, but I couldn't see another road to the love of these two women. Like I said, I hope you stay with me for the next two chapters and that we can reach the end of the journey together. Me, Fangs and you guys. And despite everything, Toni and Cheryl as well. :) 
> 
> See you guys soon.
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	9. The Great Topaz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rolling over in bed the night before the funeral, I realized that I no longer knew who I was before I met Toni. Her belief wasn't for me, her persistence wasn't for me, her dreams weren't for me, but she infected me, she contaminated me, she redirected everything I knew about love and hope. And I woke up stifling and sweating, in a crisis, repeating to myself that the world couldn't have lost Toni Topaz..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Two more steps. Thank you for enjoying the eighth chapter and talking to me about it and thank you for staying with me. 
> 
> Wish you a good reading. :)

 

When I was in the war, I remember a soldier that was practically catatonic after a grenade exploded too close to him. He kept his eyes open, looking nowhere. Some younger, foolish and disrespectful soldiers would amuse themselves by mocking him, making horns on his head with his fingers, dancing around him, and he continued to stare at nothing as if nothing he could feel, and he was transferred back to United States before I could find out if he would heal.

It's like I picture myself in the wake of the most dreadful nightmare I've ever lived. When night fell, Sweet Pea crawled into the grand salon, picked up the phone and disappeared. Kevin followed him inside, coming back only to put a coat over my shoulders, a coat with Toni's scent. But I stood there between those three bodies, the wind of the first autumn day touching me senseless, I was like the soldier of the grenade, I didn't feel, I didn't react, I didn't think. The darkness of the night swallowed me as if mirroring the void inside me.

I was still drowsy when the weak morning sun blinded my apathetic eyes, but I remember being immediately awakened when footsteps echoed on stairs of the pool. It was the Detective, Arthur Adams, followed by the Inspector Minetta, both upset at the scene they found, and Sweet Pea leading them as Kevin bent to touch my shoulder, his face pale, his eyes swollen, as if he had wept a all night long as I languished without feeling.

"What a hellish mess." Said the Detective, taking his hat off.

"What are the orders, sir?" The inspector, wanting to get out of there, stepped forward.

"The most urgent thing is for me to know what happened here, right now." Arthur Adams turned to us, waiting for an explanation. "I know you both." He pointed at Kevin and me. "You were in the valley of the ashes, and that's the poor wretch who lost his wife... That means..."

"Lady Topaz was driving the car you're looking for." Sweet Pea deliberated with determination, for the first time without his bowler hat and leather coat, on his shirt and black trousers and boots, perhaps already in mourning for whom we lost. "It was an accident. That woman threw herself in front of the car." He pointed to Cheryl's body. "Mrs. Lodge was in the same car and they freaked out and ended up running away, a very human reaction, as you should know. I knew you'd want to see the bodies before it's all over. Can I cover them now?"

"You must." The detective sighed in exhaustion.

Sweet Pea took strides, picking up white sheets from the inside, gently placing one on Toni and one on Cheryl, averting his stern eyes from the bodies, a bitter expression, his jaw flexed.

"There's still a body to cover. Are you going to leave the poor man like this?" Minetta watched curiously.

"I would shoot fifty more times and trample and fire the body before I paid any respect to him." He rose, his voice more serious and aggressive.

Before the Detective could reprimand him, Kevin pushed him away and picked up another sheet, tossing it over Jughead Jones's body. And I stood there, unable to move a single muscle, observing all the certainties, all the truths of that endless nightmare. I wanted to stand up and question Sweet Pea for his report, but I knew he was just fulfilling Toni's willingness to take the blame for the incident.

Not a minute later, I remember getting up, still staring at nothing, and start walking barefoot through the blood and marble, toward the beach. I heard voices, Kevin, the Detective, voices calling my name, but I just kept walking, climbing on the pier, until I saw myself on the edge, one step away from falling into the cold water of the estuary. I held out my hand weakly, my arm trembling with the effort, but there was no red light on the other side of the bay. I waited and waited, but the thick fog of dawn didn't allow me to see anything.

For a moment, I thought maybe they'd turned it off and it would never be lit again.

Two days before Kevin had said: _The world happens and you keep watching._

And I'm afraid to admit that he was right. When the Detective and the Inspector took Jughead's body, I stayed watching. When Sweet Pea took Toni's body under the white sheet inside, I stayed watching. When Kevin and the Lodge driver, which I didn't hear coming, took Cheryl's body, I stayed watching. It seemed that I would stay there forever, until someone touched my shoulder and I looked up to find the mysterious lord of the library, Waldo Weatherbee, this time without his owl-glasses. And he curiously guided me to my house, away from the castle, where he recommended that I take a shower to get rid of all that blood and said that I would come back and talk later.

On the other hand, it was different that time. My world, the whole world that I let myself get stuck in during the summer of nineteen twenty-two, was lost forever. The world wasn’t happening, it was completely petrified. And while I waited for some verdict of sentence or acquittal, alone in my house, glimpsing the castle of wonders, I felt lonely for the first time in a long time.

I thought about that lost dream and about the cruel injustice of everything while, not a day later, the newspapers reported the death of the aristocratic heiress of maple syrup Blossom and, on the first page, with perverse conjectures, the death of Toni Topaz, the mysterious billionaire lady of West Egg.

They couldn't even say goodbye. They couldn't share one of those electrifying glances, the burning kisses, the affectionate nicknames, mon trésor, my princess, I would never hear again those soft voices uttering devout oaths to each other, I would never see those smiles again. Nothing about them was about me, but I felt it was all about me, everything about the dream I didn't dream of, but that I grew within me in the spectrum of what I shared and what I saw they shared.

What a cruel world, with such a bitter taste...

After a whole day like a clock stopped, I began to move. But like a clock, I moved mechanically, paced, unable to perform more than one function, walking a step, sighing, walking another step, sighing step by step and sigh to sigh to face the formalities that I already despised. It began with the ringing of a sad bell and a crowd I didn't recognize at the funeral of my cousin Cheryl Blossom.

_Note: I could never refer to her as a Lodge again._

Though numb, greeting strangers with loose handshakes, except for the familiar faces of the Lodge, Kevin, and the Blossom, every minute of the Mansion Lodge courtyard I wanted to rip away that act. I wanted to get her out of there, because she didn't belong to that place and to those people. Cheryl was rich, yes, a perfect and impeccable model of aristocracy, divine and profane, but she was much more than all of them.

She just wanted love.

Her whole life she just wanted love and it was denied to her, except for Toni.

And all those rich snobs whispering to each other, looking at her as if they suspected the conditions of her death, that Veronica told everyone that it was an unsuccessful robbery. It amazed me that, besides Kevin, the driver Smithers, the servants of the Mansion and the old Nana Rose in her wheelchair, Veronica was the only one to seem to express indescribable emotions of pain and disbelief, leaning over the coffin, slow rolling tears on her face, under the black lipstick, running down to the pearl necklace and the lapel of the midnight-blue suit. Josephine was asleep in the arms of her grandmother Hermione Lodge, a black silk dress and lace gloves, and my heart broke for that poor child.

"She was very attached to Cheryl." Hiram Lodge, smelling of the refined colony, murmured to me as if we were close, expressing more dismay for the girl than for the woman we were watching, her hands tucked into the pocket of the spanish burgundy suit. "Veronica must get a new wife or a new husband, so she'll soon forget."

"Hiram..." Hermione whispered in rebuke, but it was too late.

"What did you just say?" Veronica stood up, her voice frighteningly controlled.

"Your father is right." Penelope added in a tone of disdain, circling the gold bracelets on her wrists, smiling so wickedly, an unpardonable sin before her precious daughter. "Cheryl was a mess, for all that matters. We must believe that it will be beneficial in some way for the child to grow away from her."

Beside me Kevin squeezed his eyes and twisted the white bouquet firmly, and I thought for a moment that he would throw the flowers on Penelope's face. But Veronica, startling us all, reacted first. Everyone stepped back from the coffin as she laid a hand on Cheryl's clasped hands and with her other hand drew a silver ivory-handled pistol, pointing it right in the face of the matriarch Blossom.

"If you dare to say another word about my wife, I swear I'll send you to hell, you decrepit old bastard. And don't think the rule doesn't apply to you, dad. If any of you even try to say her name to insult her, I'll put a bullet in your heads."

As if feeling the tension, the panic and the melancholy in the air, Josephine began to cry restlessly in her grandmother's arms and Veronica lowered the pistol to hold her. She looked at the girl with such regret and sadness that probably everyone there thought she had lost the love of her life.

I knew the truth. I wanted to shout it for all of them to hear.

But I didn't.

I stood there for the rest of the day while all expressionless faces disappeared. Contemplating the coffin surrounded by flowers and my cousin lying forever in it, serene and beautiful, truly looking like a princess in a glass coffin waiting for a kiss that will never come, I felt ashamed.

When Kevin kissed my face and left, leaving only me and Veronica in a cold silence, my voice sounded for the first time since I said goodbye to Toni.

"What did you say to Mr. Jones?"

"What...?" She whispered back, pale and exhausted.

"What did you say to Jughead in the workshop that night?"

I didn't expect her to respond to me, and she didn't. But her expression was haunted, as if she hadn't yet thought about it. She leaned back over the coffin and held my cousin's icy face, caressing her cheeks that would never blush again, lips that would never open to smile again. Veronica's touch was reverent and gentle and all I wanted to do was pull her away from Cheryl and say she wasn't worthy of doing it.

"I'm sorry..." There came the first sob, almost screamed, and the stream of tears flowing freely, falling on Cheryl's face. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." She cried and shook her head, as if she finally began to believe what had happened and she knew she couldn't escape guilt. "What have I done to you, my beautiful girl?"

Why did she apologize? Why did she call my cousin in that tender, regretful tone? Why didn't she give that protection and devotion to Cheryl when she was alive? She never struggled to be better. She never apologized for hurting her. She never tried. In my unquenchable grief, I could only tell myself that she was crying for Cheryl what she couldn't cry for Elizabeth Jones.

I left a kiss echoing in the air for Cheryl and the eternal silence to Veronica, wondering if I would ever forgive her for stealing the hope from me.

I never did.

 

The mourning for my cousin was not nearly worse than despair waiting for me in continuing that. Sweet Pea disappeared, leaving only a red rose on his bed in the castle, and it was up to me, seeing myself alone there, take responsibility for cleaning the blood and for the funeral and burial of Toni. I chose the best coffin, the best makeup, the best clothes, because wherever she went, I wanted her to be as illustrious as ever, hoping she would find Cheryl on the way, even if I didn't believe it. Long ago I had turned away from God and his dealings.

As the Countess Adèle de Toulouse-Lautrec would say: _Sometimes it may be difficult to believe in divine mercy, but you will find it even harder to live without God._

Inconsolable and alone in the coldness of that castle, I felt like the young Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec himself, shuddering under those words.

For two days I waited and went mad, waiting for some living soul to appear at Lady Topaz's funeral. I called for everyone at her parties and also forwarded an urgent telegram to the name Forsythe Pendleton II, asking him to locate Sweet Pea for the to of them to come with me to the last goodbye. I waited and I cried and had nightmares where Toni would rise from the marble floor, hold Cheryl in her arms and they would laugh, bowing to applause for impeccable performance.

And after these two days there was still no one. I looked at that little body, which already had the bravery to proclaim herself as Atlas, able to carry the sky in the palm of her hand in the name of love, and I whispered to her that I would find someone to say goodbye to her with me. I felt anger and frustration from all those people who enjoyed her hospitality and disappeared without a trace. I wanted to find Sweet Pea and break his jaw.  wanted to hunt FP to the ends of the earth and say that he wasn't even worth half a simple meal she paid him on that day at the restaurant.

Because Toni deserved more. Toni deserved flowers, prayers, songs, and obeisance. Toni deserved tears and words of honor. She was my friend and she deserved much more than anyone would be able to offer.

At dawn on the third day, a knock on the huge doors gave me hope again. I ran in my pajamas and stumbled into the grand salon, the echo of the beats sounding in me like prophetic bells.

When I opened the door, however, it was an astounding surprise.

In front of me was an old man in beret and pretty clothes, a silver cane, a little pot-bellied, bald and with a thick beard. He was holding the newspaper that had announced Toni's death and there were tears still fresh on his eyelids.

"Can I help you, sir?" I asked, embarrassed by his sad look.

"Where did they put Antoinette?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I don’t k..."

"Antoinette Thompson." He pointed to the newspaper. "My granddaughter."

_Antoinette Thompson._

"Sir..." I widened my eyes, impacted by the revelation.

"I'm Thomas Thompson. Forgive the rudeness of an old man." He reached out to greet me and I shivered.

"Please, don't mention that." I invited him with a gesture to enter. "Come, I will provide you a coffee."

I lit the fireplace in a smaller west wing room, which was locked up during the summer, and I offered coffee and cake to the weary man. His eyes pursued, but he didn't seem to be really seeing what was around him in the magnificence of that castle. We sat in the armchairs, facing each other, and although I was still stunned in my pain, I suddenly had a million questions. He devoured three pieces and stared for a moment at the gigantic ceilings, the glittering floor, the royal armchair, the wide windows, and the crystal chandelier above our heads, as if disbelieving the place.

"I read in the newspapers in St. Louis." He sighed. "I came as soon as I found out."

"I'm sorry, sir, I didn't know how to contact you. If you want to take the body to St. Louis..."

"No, don't even think about it." He refused profusely. "Toni should love this place, see what she got here..." He looked through the room again. "You were her employee?"

"We are... Were friends. Close friends." I resented myself, reminding myself once more that she would never be with me again.

"It was a madman who did it, it could only have been a madman." The old man moaned. "Only a madman would hurt her. She was too good, you know, young man?"

"Yes, sir, I know."

"She may have died young, but I see that she has achieved so much. Look at this place. It's like a fairy tale. Few people who come from poverty can achieve all this in an honest way... "

"Excuse me, sir, but did you say poverty?" I frowned.

It had been revealed that Toni hadn't been born in a cradle of gold, but I didn't expect the term.

"Yes, young man." He sighed again, thoughtfully. "Her parents died too early and I raised her as best I could until she was thirteen in St. Louis, but Toni couldn't bear the life we had. She started working at seven, selling tickets to the circus. She always got a place for me in the bleachers and said that one day her life would be like the circus, a big show, a big event, full of color and joy... "

It made sense. All that mystery about her origin and how her story seemed rehearsed, though it didn't seem distorted. She was Antoinette Thompson, a humble girl from Missouri, who created a character of exquisite charisma and riches falling from her pockets, Toni Topaz, Lady, grace and luxury. And in her heart, I knew, the same humble little girl.

"I'm sorry you weren't here to see the joy there was." I smiled apologetically, omitting the ingratitude of the people who had fun there.

"Toni sent me a lot of money every month and bought me a very good house in St. Louis, and we arranged it by letters that I would be with her when she solved a pending matter of great importance."

"Pending matter..." My heart squeezed.

_Cheryl Blossom._

"Yes, young man." He nodded solemnly. "She said that everything she had conquered had been for a single purpose." He banged his cane on the floor, his voice proud. "Her dream would come true, she said. I hope it's true and she's succeeded, even if this place is already a dream come true."

I couldn't help but think that Toni could have been a model of american citizen who reached the pinnacle of success and fortune, illustrious, traditional, a revolutionary helping to take the country further and further. But all this seemed so silly in the face of her character. Toni didn't care how people saw her, except for me and Cheryl. She didn't want to be a role model, she just wanted to live for the love that grounded the person she became. And if she hadn't been so obsessed with the dream of the past, she might have run off with Cheryl in the dead of night, without even thinking about approaching Veronica on that fateful day.

She was condemned for dreaming.

Because we live in a world that demands that we want more, that we are never satisfied. Instinctive ambition, be it benevolent or malevolent, ends up destroying us, because although we are very clever and visionary, we just never know the time to stop.

But it was still unfair, I repeated and tortured myself while Thomas Thompson slept crying for the loss of his granddaughter in the next room, it was unfair and would be forever unfair, because Toni's dream was pure, her dream was heroic. Toni Topaz was the most genuine creature I've ever met and she shaped her life to save her love, the Louisville's aristocratic redhead, Cheryl Blossom, lost in years of trauma and abandonment. I don't know if Toni could save her, but I believed her.

Rolling over in bed the night before the funeral, I realized that I no longer knew who I was before I met Toni. Her belief wasn't for me, her persistence wasn't for me, her dreams weren't for me, but she infected me, she contaminated me, she redirected everything I knew about love and hope. And I woke up stifling and sweating, in a crisis, repeating to myself that the world couldn't have lost Toni Topaz.

People like me pass blank through the universe, without glory, without contributions, unnoticed in apathetic lives, as the sound that in space does not propagate. People like Veronica pass like black holes across the universe, destroying and swallowing everything around without consequences to surpass their power. People like Kevin are passengers of the universe, beautiful, amusing, but almost unreachable, like comets between the celestial bodies. People like Cheryl pass through the universe in burning and unrestrained damage, like stars that are born sparkling and they sparkle and sparkle more and more, until they become supernova and explode, disappearing forever.

Toni was a unique type of celestial being, an authentic and inestimable existence, like an intangible angel, or a minor goddess, she wasn't part of the universe in the same way we were, she was anything but ordinary, she held the sky in the palm from her hand and made the world a better place even when he seemed lost in selfishness and barbarity. She smiled at the revelers as if they were all her friends, she mingled with all kinds of people and offered them kindness and comfort. She put the navy blue victorian frock coat of her favorite on my shoulders and called me _mon trésor_.

_No one ever told me I was something precious._

 

As I predicted again, there was no one new there the next day. The butler stood to scare away the reporters and curious photographers. Waldo Weatherbee, the mysterious man in the library, appeared without glasses, drinking whiskey in a silver canteen, crying quietly. He stayed with Thomas Thompson, both in black suits, while I buried forever my friend under the cherry tree she brought especially to Cheryl. The wind was strong and the little pink petals fell on the soft soil, as if paying homage to her. And then the wind went on around us, the hollow song as the only sound in our ears, still in a tribute that, though unworthy of her, was the best I could think of, for none of us humans could do it with dignity before whom Toni Topaz was.

Mr. Thompson began to cry at some point between the falling petals and Weatherbee's declaiming of life and death and memory, an exhausting monologue that served only to depreciate me even more, making me missing her, who had the power to turn anything into the most interesting thing in the world.

Even as Weatherbee invited Mr. Thompson to retire and have tea, I stood in front of that grave, reminding myself  when I was in that place with Toni, Cheryl, and Kevin. As the night drew nearer, I turned to see the lights of the castle and again the nostalgia broke my heart, and I would give anything to go back to that unparalleled summer we shared. We dreamed in that realm with circuses and colors and loves, we were lion and tamer, we fell in love in different ways, we were invincible and free, dancing in the grand salon to the sound of an organ of tubes.

"I thought I'd find you here." A sweet voice broke the silence of my mourning.

I turned my eyes away from the hollow of petals for the first time since I closed it. Kevin was approaching with a merciful smile, holding a beautiful bouquet of red anthuriums, wearing sweater and black pants, blue shoes shining in his walk.

He had already greeted me like that in very different circumstances.

I didn't smile back at him, maybe for the first time.

"I'm leaving, Kevin." I don't know when I made that decision, but I confessed the inevitable truth.

Sadness flashed in his eyes and I felt like an unhappy bastard. I felt I was tainting Toni's memory, hurting the man I loved, right there, in front of her tummy, the one who built an extraordinary life and turned her world upside down for the happiness of the woman she loved.

"Leaving..." He swallowed, staring at the flowers in the bouquet. "For how long?"

"I don't know if I can ever come back."

"I have places." He looked shy for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Houses, apartments. Everywhere. Can we talk about this?"

"What's there to talk about? Don't you realize it's all over?" I shrugged, trying to regain the apathy I'd left behind when I met Toni.

"Don't talk to me like I haven't lost my best friend too, Fangs Fogarty." He pressed the bouquet, frowning.

"I..." I pulled away from him, not wanting to face those pretty green eyes and give in to them. "Toni and I were not best friends. We barely knew each other."

"You don't have to be reasonable or prudent now." His comfort came with a gentle promise. "You don't have to pretend she was not important to you."

"Well, she's gone now. So is Cheryl." I tried to persuade myself of my pain. "There is nothing else that holds me here."

"Oh. I see." He whispered and I turned to those eyes, knowing I was hurting him. "Is there nothing here for you?"

I should have confessed, I should have trusted him. But all I could think of was that he would hate me and think me a delirious man and a fool. How could I make him understand that, just as Toni awakened Cheryl to love again, she awakened me to life? How could I explain to him that without her I felt apathetic and hopeless, as if she had left and taken all the magic of being alive with her? How could he accept it if I said that after witnessing the ruin of that great love, I no longer knew whether love was a true and achievable thing, even though I felt I loved him too much?

"I don't know." I leaned forward to face the petal-covered grave again, shoving my shaking hands into my pockets so he would not notice the desperation that was trying to consume me one more time.

"Why are you doing this?" The first tears glistened on his eyelids, his arms crossed, his chin trembling.

"Kevin..."

"I lost Cheryl. Now I'm going to lose you? What kind of sadistic joke is this?"

"You're not used to losing."

"I love you." He proclaimed suddenly.

"You what...?" I thought I understood it wrong.

"I love you." He gently threw the bouquet over the ground and looked at me deeply, an undoubted certainty within his eyes. "If I say I love you, then you have to stay."

And I should have stayed.

But I didn't.

"I'm not sure what love is anymore."

 

For days I wandered in solitude, dishevelled clothing and bitter cigarettes through streets full of color, light and well-dressed people. New York suddenly looked deformed, monochromatic and obscure without Toni Topaz. Some times it seemed that I would see that Duesenberg Rolls-Royce rounding a corner and honking, with her waving to me, and we would walk like illustrious comrades through the city.

Kevin didn't waste his tears with me under that cherry tree, and I theorized that he didn't want to stain that sanctuary with more pain. He formally said goodbye and left me there, anesthetized with my own decisions, until dawn the next day, with trembling legs and red eyes. I haven't seen him since, and I haven't dared to revoke what I said to him, though the motives have changed. I still knew what love was, because the marks of that love between Cheryl and Toni were still burning inside my memory, but I told myself miserably that he deserved much more than I could offer for a long time.

Waldo Weatherbee and Thomas Thompson have also gone, but I don't remember saying goodbye to them. For many days before I began to wander in New York I was under that cherry tree, my beard always beginning to pinch on my face, my lungs aching with the excess of wind, and my mind, broken like a rusty gear, dissolving into my torture for what I and the world lost in that day.

And it was in this same precarious condition that I stumbled and invaded the Forsythe Pendleton II office in the center, after an unscrupulous investigation, terrifying the secretary and bursting through thick iron doors, as if I were architecting and finally executing my revenge for his absence, as if he owed me something, as if it were a crime he hadn't said goodbye to Toni at that funeral.

There he was, in a black suit and top hat, the Serpent ruby brooch sparkling on his lapel. The office was elegant and neat, a couch and ochre-colored armchair, a small cabinet stocking two bottles of bourbon and three glasses, creamy shutters and a gigantic mahogany desk next to the window. But what surprised me the most, and made me even more enraged, was to see, standing beside him, Sweet Pea, in his leather coat and bowler hat, with the same grave countenance as always, though thinner and dejected than I was remembered.

"I was wondering when you'd show up." FP smiled at me with his yellow teeth.

"You..." I stared at Sweet Pea and clenched my fists.

"Come on, boys." FP rebuked. "No fights in my office. Let's talk like civilized gentlemen we are."

"You were loyal to her." I accused Sweet Pea. "And you've known her for years." And then I accused FP, inconsequential. "None of you were there for her."

They remained silent. Sweet Pea didn't take her eyes from me and I tried to find some regret in those dark somber eyes.

"You must understand, my boy." FP sighed. "I'm not a man who says goodbye to his friends. I'm with them in life, and when they're gone, I keep myself away to celebrate life in my memory. Especially Toni."

"There was no one there." I felt like starting to cry all over again. "Only three people went to say goodbye to her, after all she offered to those people who went to her parties!"

"Lower your voice, my boy." He got up sighing and picked up the cigar, limping to one of the windows, lightly pushing the shutters to look down into the city below. "Leave us alone, Sweet Pea."

He obeyed the order and we were both in that huge room, an uncomfortable silence inside me every second he smiled as if it were all right, as if she were still with us and she could enter at any moment through those iron doors.

"Toni was remarkable, you know?" He finally turned to me, no longer smiling. "She was the best I ever had, no one could compare to her. She came to us with hope in her eyes, triumph in her words and courage in her heart, and she remained faithful all the time to her dream, the one about the aristocrat redhead, even after all she saw and did in the position she held."

"As a Serpent."

"The best of all Serpents." He proclaimed proudly, not caring that I already knew. "I know how bad this sounds, my boy, the Serpents, the terrible New York gang. But we're more than that, or at least we've become more than that when Toni arrived."

"What do you mean?"

"Toni was exceptional." He took a drag on his cigar. "She would have become Queen when I could no longer command them. She had a peculiarity with words, a persuasion, a magic tongue, convincing everyone, attracting allies. She conquered the trust of our clients, the respect of our enemies, the admiration of our members. She would lead us to glory."

"And yet there was no one there for her." I scolded again, blinded in my pain. "Not even those members you say that admired her."

"You really are an innocent boy, aren't you?" His yellow teeth gleamed at me. "You don't understand the extent of Toni's dream."

"I saw this dream come true. Can you say the same?"

"And that's why you were at her funeral. That's why you were her friend." He turned to the window again, the smoke spreading around him. "Toni had admirers, curious, pupils, followers, believers, but not friends. She never gave herself a chance to make friends. She never allowed people to approach her, not really. She was so immersed in her dream... "

"Cheryl..."

"Lovely name." He laughed. "Toni never got involved with anyone else, she never opened up to anyone, never let people really know her. It seemed she wanted to preserve herself to still be the same person who fell in love in Louisville with a girl she couldn't never have ."

"Cheryl loved her."

"I know." He turned to me once more, looking melancholy. "I'm not questioning Toni's reasons, I'm justifying her loneliness. You see, my boy, all that mattered to her was to achieve her dream. The rest was ephemeral. The rest only... Existed."

"And Sweet Pea? Didn't he know her intimately?"

"She was his protégé. You judge him, but you don't try to understand him. He was the first to see potential in her and I thought he'd just keep an eye on her, but it was more than that. On a night watch, at the fire in one of our camps, I watched them both from afar. I saw Toni gesturing, pointing to the sky, smiling. And he came back that night with a sparkle in his eyes that I've never seen before. I think he decided to stay by her side until her dream came true. She was... A Serpent charmer, you know?" His cavernous laughter echoed again. "Like me, Sweet Pea celebrates life. Death... Maybe it's too much for him to handle."

When I left the building and found Sweet Pea smoking on the sidewalk, I shook his hand as firmly and cordially as I could.

I returned to the castle and remained in the gloom for the next three days of autumn. I thought about what Thomas and FP had told me and realized that not even I, who saw her dream triumphing with my own eyes, knew her entirely. She would always be a delightful and intangible mystery, but alone in that castle, watching the photos we took together, the four of us happy and having fun, I discovered that it didn't matter. She would forever be the mystery, but also forever the best friend I've ever had.

Perishing delirious in Kevin's arms, my cousin said something I will never forget. She raved about Toni, still as much in love as before, and whispered to him... _The Great Topaz_. And it was exactly what she was. Among all the words I have ever used to describe her, there was the perfect definition, so sacred, so remarkable, so specific.

With the most memorable, extraordinary, divine and sovereign smile I have ever glimpsed.

With the most genuine, pure, untouchable, brave dream I've ever seen.

With eyes full of nobility, grandeur, hope and love.

_The Great Toni Topaz._

 

Shortly after those three days, I went up to one of the rooms filled with elegant clothes, I wore the best black tuxedo of red lapel and tie that I found, the best oxford shoes also red, sprinkled the best italian perfume and headed to New York, to the office of Forsythe Pendleton II. He was still there the same way, the yellow smile, a brunswick green suit, the cigar hanging from his lips, Sweet Pea beside him like a hawk.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, my boy?" His eyes flashed predatory to me.

I remember breathing deeply, nurturing in me a certainty that I've never had before.

"I want to join you." I clenched my fists. "Make me a Serpent."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last one will be our epilogue and I hope you enjoy what Fangs will have to tell us.   
> Thank you, thank you again for come this far!
> 
> See you in the last step of our journey. :)
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


	10. Epilogue: Birds on the Summer Breeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 𝐈 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐭, 𝐓𝐨𝐧𝐢.
> 
> 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈'𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝?
> 
> 𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a ride. It was very splendid, arduous and exciting to write this story. I apologize for all the suffering and thank you immensely for reading, for those who spoke, for those who criticized, for those who cried, and especially for those who remained after the worst of the storms of this journey.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this last step and that this story has for you some piece of the great significance it has for me.

 

 

>  

"Going once... Going twice... Going three times? Sold to Mr. Fogarty!" The auctioneer hits the hammer.

It's an unparalleled pleasure to see the fury in the brute's eyes. Marmaduke Mason comes out banging his silver cane on the floor, covering his face with the hat, huffing with rage. At this moment precisely, the triumph of seeing my inevitable rival acting like a wild cage, tickles my smile and makes party in my stomach, filling me up like a drug. There is also the pleasure of getting the castle, leaving all other participants desolate and journalists eager to discover the destiny of the abandoned monument.

"I know the ideal demolisher if you..." The auctioneer begins.

"I don't intend to demolish it."

I want to talk to the photographers, I want to whistle about the return of the biggest parties Long Island has ever seen, but the presence around me is far more powerful than any other in the yard filled with white chairs and yellow banners. For Kevin Mason, Kevin Keller, my same old Kevin, stands there in the modest white suit of citron waistcoat, the dark bowtie tightened on his handsome neck, and his smile, matching this mesmerizing pair of green eyes, shining to me in my elegant licorice tuxedo. He smiles with lust and I take my hat off to revere him, and my smile seals the beginning of our secret.

The next morning, when I'm sweaty, barefoot, with folded sleeves, drinking orange juice and watching the sunrise on the beach at the castle, Kevin comes panting, sinking his feet into the sand, and he's knocking me down and kissing me before I can think of asking.

"Do you know what love is now?" He whispers on my mouth.

"...I do."

 

Ten years passed quickly when I ceased to be a man who watches and thinks and I have become a man who acts freed from all the delays. I left that young man like someone who abandons a flat shoe or one that no longer serves. And that's how I discovered how dreams move us, because I had never dreamed with my eyes open until I declared that I wanted to join the Serpents. For me. For Toni. For us.

Forsythe Pendleton Jones II, as God manipulating clay, made me. He started that very day, telling me to forget about the cozy house I had rented next to the castle and to hand over my resignation letter to Wall Street. When I returned, he still grunted contentedly: It wasn't worth it, my boy. Wall Street will break.

One of his followers burned all my clothes and another commissioned new, with vibrant colors, modern european models, shoes that shone like headlights. I received the keys to a large apartment in the heart of New York and the documents of a black Duesenberg J. A week after I joined, I was received at the small restaurant where I met FP with Toni at an initiation party. There was champagne and jazz and I was presented with a silver cigarette case and my own ruby serpent ring.

Sweet Pea became my mentor and kind of a friend, considering we didn't have anyone else on our account. He taught me the art of negotiating through a strategy balancing tyranny and mercy, and he told me some new stories about Toni and her legacy in the Serpents as we watched the camp around the fire. Those stories were the food of my soul tormented for many years beyond, even because it was impossible to escape them. Everyone talked about her. Everyone praised the Great Toni Topaz.

I discovered that the Serpents led a host of other small gangs and I plunged their traditions as deep as I could. Within a year I also discovered, not denying my surprise, that Mad Dog and Joaquin commanded one of these gangs, and I settled on having two friends away from the nightmare of the past, the pain I felt for Toni's failure, though I never had uttered a word about those painful memories.

Inside me, though, the memory never faded.

I began to know the vastness of power and abundance of money, and I think that some unspeakable and subtle madness took hold of me as the years went by, always changing form, but never of essence. Suddenly I had decided that Toni's dream would keep me breathing and that I would put all the pieces in the right places, and I would keep the promise or die trying. I knew it would take time and sacrifice, but is not this how the biggest dreams are made of?

Having Sweet Pea, Mad Dog and Joaquin by my side was comforting against loneliness. Although I had become a man of more actions and less reflections, I could never forget the summer of nineteen twenty-two, no matter how much I tried and got drunk to forget. They were nocturnal dreams, pits of illusion, lapses of lyrical reminiscences in shades of red, and Toni's smile hung from nowhere, shining like a mischief to me.

I saw their burning kisses on the embers of the camp, I heard their laughter in the dawn birds, I felt their presence in the great cherry trees, I tried to see them in every couple that showed affection around me, in every pair of eyes that seemed to share the world with one another, but I was never able to find. I saw them together when, in the twilight, the sky tinged with pink over the reddish-orange turned into the dark night.

The first step was the simplest, ensuring that Thomas Thompsom continued to receive a generous sum of money every month, unlimited. I also took to give him, in St. Louis, Toni's favorite coat and a photo of her and Cheryl dancing in the grand salon. When a tear fell on the photograph and he grinned, I think that good old man finally understood what the dream of his granddaughter was really about.

In less than four years I became the right-hand man of FP with the help of my only three companions. With the right to command one of our gangs, it was done, I had a goal to accomplish besides making a fortune. When FP summoned me to New York and offered me the promotion, the choice was immediate, and the Gargoyles, in Chicago, became my subordinates.

Everything was going according to plan.

According to the distant dream.

It was hard to put those kids on the line. They were noisy and didn't know how to work as a team, and I was nothing like FP had described Toni, I didn't have a magic tongue, and I have learned over the years that some people can only learn from pain. When I think about it, I feel carried back to that summer. Toni's love shaped her into her dream and that summer shaped the way I dragged myself through life.

That summer shaped the person I was.

 

Almost a year after taking command of the Gargoyles, one of my destinies was fulfilled when Mad Dog informed me about a meeting in a special place. The La Bonne Nuit was unmistakable, like a small Moulin Rouge demure of North America, but in black and purplish tones. The synchronized dancers threw perfumed, sweaty pieces of clothing into the air for customers to pick up and fill their nostrils with their scents, making their fantasies smaller and smaller. Cigar smoke hung in the air like mist over the mountains and the voices were as loud as the jazz.

I wasn't surprised to find Veronica Lodge behind the counter serving drinks as an ordinary servant, even though I knew the place belonged to her. She looked different, less imposing, less somber, with tired eyes and softer than I have ever seen, and I almost forgave her for the past. But not really. But what really captured my attention was the little girl sitting on the inside counter, beside a row of brandy bottles, her face buried in a book, a graceful satin maroon dress, her legs dangling in the beat of the music that sounded.

Josephine, about eight years old.

"I don't like this dress." The little girl whimpered. "Why can't my dress be red?"

"This is a shade of red, my dear." Veronica whispered to her, delivering a tray of colored drinks to the waiter.

"But I want more and more and more red." She crossed her arms, pouting. "Like mommy!"

I knew she was talking about Cheryl and it surprised me a little that Veronica had kept my cousin's memory alive. I couldn't tell if it was through guilt or some epiphanic affection discovered, but the certainty in that child's voice made me feel some empathy lost by the one who was no longer considered a friend.

"Let's make a deal." Veronica smiled at the girl, all the wit still belonging to her. "On Saturday we're going to visit grandma Penny and she'll take you to choose how many red dresses you want."

"Yes!" She laughed sweetly. "I want one like that of your picture!"

Josephine pointed over Veronica's head, and my eyes from far away followed to the gold-framed photo in the wide mirror behind the counter, almost secret in the midst of so many bottles, but gleaming there, Cheryl Blossom in a gorgeous victorian red dress she wore at the wedding party. But her smile at the camera, I knew, distant and guardian of many sorrows.

"See that door?" I mumbled to Sweet Pea, pointing to a black door in the background. "The target is inside. I want you to go in there and work in silence. He's mine. Don't forget that."

"Milord." He nodded and passed me, the obedient horde following him with they hands on the pistols and knives on their belts.

_Note: I never approved of him calling me that. I didn't deserve to be called by a noble title. I wasn't like Toni._

Veronica watched them pass and as if she knew, her eyes met mine, solemn, severe, still filled with guilt. "Josie, my dear." She focused on the child. "Why don't you go to the kitchen? That cake is still waiting for you."

"The one with cherry cream?" The child's eyes flashed.

"That's right. Save a piece for mom, will you?"

Josephine jumped off the counter and ran through the kitchen door without answering. Veronica grabbed two glasses and filled it with brandy, drinking her dose before I even sat down and accepted the offer. The drink burned my throat, but I didn't let that profane presence with the picture of my beautiful cousin on her wall destroy my mood or turn me away from my purpose.

After a long silence, I smiled the best I could. "I'll walk through that door and leave with my subordinates in about seven minutes. When I leave, lock it so none of your customers or employees will find out. It's the least you can do, isn't it? "

"Absolutely." She didn't look worried at all.

"I'm glad we understand each other. Send my coldest greetings to aunt Penelope."

"I will." She responded mechanically, almost averting her eyes from mine.

"Goodbye, Mrs. Lodge."

"Goodbye, Mr. Fogarty."

 

I finished my drink before getting up and waved my hat at her, walking slowly to one of my destinations. Efficient and finally disciplined, the Gargoyles were surrounded by corpses and Sweet Pea held on, his golden knees on the hard ground, Nicholas St. Clair, his nose broken and his eyes petrified with fear.

"Good evening, Mr. St. Clair." I approached, taking off my pretty duck blue suit and smiling at that miserable pig.

He was attractive and elegant even terrified. Standing in front of him after all those years tormenting me with the revelation of my cousin, however, he was nothing more than a condemned about to have his sentence fulfilled at my feet.

"Who are you?" He growled, threatened, trembling with blood. "You will regret this outrage! My father will destroy you all!"

"I'll be frank with you. Years ago you tried to hurt a precious girl. What was her name?"

"What?" He frowned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

I smashed the first punch in his face and the impact on the bones of my fingers was glorious. You see, during those early years, I embraced violence, violence became an inseparable companion in that craft. Again, I wasn't like Toni. I wasn't incorruptible. I wasn't noble. I've never been. I lived in a state of apathy before her and violence was the greatest strength I encountered after I lost her.

"I'll ask you again." I sighed, flexing my pulsing fingers. "It was a party, I believe in the year of nineteen eighteen, in your house, the birthday of Hiram Lodge. You tried to hurt a precious girl. What was her name? "

"Ch... Cheryl." He gasped, blood dripping from the edge of his lips. "Cheryl Blossom."

"Perfect. She was a very precious girl, Mr. St. Clair." I didn't notice a tear dripping down my face. I had never truly cried for my cousin, I was completely lost in my pain by Toni. I think, deep down, I've never stopped to suffer for Cheryl in the same way. "And you tried to hurt her. She was marked forever with this memory, but you escaped with only a concussion, didn't you?"

"Look, I don't know who you are or what you want..."

He shut up as I slammed one, two, three punches into his teeth, the desperate whimpers of pain sounding weak and regretful. I felt euphoric, the scent of drops of blood on my shirt reinvigorating all the anger I kept. And Sweet Pea smiled at me, as if he admired a splendid work of art.

"I didn't say you could speak, Mr. St. Clair." I held him by the collar of that prince's suit and snarled at his disfigured face. "I should just put a bullet in your forehead, but I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that I'm your reckoning. I wanted you to know that this is the time when you will pay for trying to hurt that precious girl, Mr. St. Clair."

He tried to mumble some excuse or clemency, but I was taken by some unknown and unstoppable force. When I recognized myself, I was covered by his blood and the Gargoyles were applauding, some astonished, some frightened, and Sweet Pea was tapping my shoulder in greeting. And Nicholas St. Clair was dead at my feet in a red puddle. And I shouldn't have felt that peace that invaded me, but I felt, and I'm not ashamed to have felt it. I hoped, if there was paradise and hell, that Cheryl would be proud of me in paradise, watching that bastard go straight down into the depths of the hellfire.

I wondered if this was how Veronica felt in the past, holding all the power, as if no one could stop her, as if nothing was out of her reach. While the Gargoyles cleared the mess and Sweet Pea gently took Nicholas's blood from me with a damp handkerchief, and I began to cry like a baby, however, I realized that there were many things that would forever be out of my reach.

Toni Topaz and Cheryl Blossom were part of these things.

 

The following years were more about business transactions, but my wrists constantly tingled with the desire to hurt the whole world to make up for what and who I lost. Mad Dog made me take boxing lessons every week to pacify that strange impulse that gripped me, but at least it brought a silent and distant respect from everyone around me. Again, I wasn't like Toni, I was corrupted by the violent power, and I appreciated what it brought to me and I didn't let it go.

I acquired valuable properties and commercial locations, but nothing seemed enough, not even the magnanimous mansion I bought in Chicago while leading the Gargoyles. For some reason, though I tried to build my empire, to get close to the boys, and keep my purpose in progress, every lonely night on the balcony of a luxury house, watered with whiskey and riches, dragged me back into that summer of unrecoverable happiness. The world around me shone with gold and jewels, but it never ceased to be ruin and darkness within me.

_Note: It's important to stress that I could never be like Toni. I took the unique dream and surrounded myself with riches, but that nobility that she had, the thing I admired most in my life, I never managed to conquer._

In october of nineteen twenty nine, Wall Street collapses and the Great Depression begins. That Thursday I thought we were lost, but FP knew, I never found out how he knew, but ever since we met at that restaurant, he knew it would break. What I witnessed was a wave of despair and suicides and phones going crazy while the Serpents and their associates, in the grace of our king's yellow smile, triumphed in chaos.

Losing my last scruples, I took the opportunity to buy the Lodge Mansion in East Egg and signed a secret contract with Hiram that assured me that everything on the property would belong to me, even Veronica's horses. Little did I care for that den, for all I wanted was the gold urn resting on the marble in the fireplace.

The ashes of my beloved cousin Cheryl Blossom.

_Note: I never knew if this had caused a war between Veronica and her father, but to be frank, I hope it did it so._

 

In the summer of nineteen thirty-two, a mansion was obtained at an auction on the Long Island estuary in West Egg. I walk through the ruins of this colossal palace and my final work begins. I dare to look around the property and the bay through the cracked marble balcony of the room where Toni toyed with tossing shirts and Cheryl wept silently. The cherry tree remains with my friend's grave resting under the petals and I smile as the trucks carrying materials and laborers park in the main entrance.

_I made it, Toni._

_You see what I've done for you, my best friend?_

_I will complete and finish your dream._

Kevin and I meet regularly at the rented house next to the castle and all these encounters unfold into a new adventure, nineteen thirty-two turning into our personal fantasy through shadows at dusk, a frenzy of two naked bodies and words none of us could truly understand. It's exciting, especially when I find out that Marmaduke Mason is the son of a renowned military. He is dangerous and rich, just like Veronica was, although he seems to really love Kevin. But after all I've lived up to this moment, I couldn't care less about the brute's feelings.

For a year these adventures take place in secret gatherings in hidden theaters and restaurants, unbelievable excuses for Kevin's husband and the parties I play at the castle when the restoration is almost over. For a year I rediscover Kevin Keller and I confirm that I have always been and will be forever in love with him even after ten years. If what kept my love alive was Toni's dream or love itself, he didn't seem to care, nor hide the reciprocity of this feeling.

And in the early summer of nineteen thirty-three, the steps that changed who I was began to be redone. We have tea in my rented house and Kevin came to recognize that castle where we truly fall in love, the marble, the gardens, the swimming pool, the paintings and sculptures, the shirts and costumes, the windows and doors, the library and the beach, the grand salon of the pipe organ. I hold his hand and together we act characters that we are not. He's the married aristocrat, with the secret of a past love, and I'm the person who has mysteriously conquered richness in the nourishment of an inexhaustible dream.

He cries in my arms and runs away from me. He comes back panting, running, and we kiss in the middle of the grand salon. He whispers, clinging to me, shivering me from head to toe: _You came back to me, mon trésor_.

The only thing missing is the rain.

 

We agree to meet at his house and I choose the perfect look: white shirt, copper-colored tailor's pants and pink suspenders of blue stripes. Exactly what she wore on that damn day in Pembrooke. I wanted to recreate the energy, I want to feel what she felt and to give her the symbol of what should have been.

Before I leave, I kneel down on Toni's grave and carefully scatter the ashes of Cheryl Blossom onto the soil and the petals.

"There it is, Toni." I whisper, thinking she might be listening. "This is my last gift to you."

 

Unavoidable tension rips through the radiant scenery of the Mason Mansion and I find it glorious. The brute broke his cane in his own hands, his face is purplish, his nostrils flushed, he's about to lose control. Kevin stands quietly between us, looking at him, torn between compassion and determination, his red sweater as a warning sign for the brute and as the light of hope for me, and I feel about to dance in that great room of noble wood and expensive crystals, celebrating a victory that I knew to be mine.

I didn't have to ask Kevin for anything, for he was with me, trapped and obsessed with the dream, and I knew that even before we said goodbye ten years ago.

"I never loved you, Moose. I'm sorry."

"You married me!" The brute exclaims. "What did this strange little fellow do to you?!"

"I always loved Fangs. I thought I'd lost him, but he came back to me."

"Fangs...!" He snorts, mocking my name again. "I don't know what the hell is going on here, but I won't allow it!"

"Please, Moose..." Kevin practically begs and it just makes my smile grow. I know what he's doing and I can't deny how much I adore it. How he sounds false in his plea, how he lies with excellence, as if he were really heartbroken as Cheryl was that day. "Please..."

"Did I do something wrong? Tell me and I'll fix this!" The brute abandons his aggressive stance and tears roll on his bearded face, his knees trembling, almost giving up.

I suddenly feel dirty and unworthy of the dream I took when I don't feel sorry for that poor man. He wasn't like Veronica, but I personified her in him and not even those tears of undoubted pain could undo the perspective in my heart. This vengeance will be worth the vengeance I have never committed against Veronica, perhaps for Josephine, perhaps for the feeling of friendship that still inhabited some place within me, but Marmaduke Mason is not my friend and there's no remnant of humanity that makes me give up the dream for him.

Kevin, though with tears in his eyes as well, backs away to hold my hand and sighs softly. "I'm sorry, Moose, please forgive me." He turns and smiles at me. "This man is the greatest love I've ever known."

 

Joyful melodies echo from the pipe organ through the castle, in the last days of the summer of nineteen thirty-three, and I contemplate the sunset with an inexperienced satisfaction. Many thoughts run through my head and the memories, though painful, turn into melancholy conclusions in the mausoleum inside my mind, and the truths that would hurt me years ago, today are nothing more than anaesthetized facts.

The truth is that all of us were heinous sinners. All of us in our own way murdered Cheryl, murdered Toni, murdered the purest of loves. Either by doing nothing or by doing everything wrong. Veronica murdered Cheryl when she didn't release her and then murdered them when she brought a bitter madman to the gates of the castle. Kevin and I murdered Cheryl and Toni when we just watched, when we let everything happen without control and without defense. We murder the love, the hope, the dream. The blood of this dream, which perished in Toni's eyes that afternoon, will be forever in our hands.

We could all have saved them and avoid the tragedy. And today, more than ten years later, I would return from a day of work, I would wave at the gates of the castle and I would find them there, perhaps dancing in the grand salon, silent in the cherry tree, perhaps reading or swimming on the beach. I would see them happy, as they deserved to be. It cost me to lose them to understand how perverse indifference is. In another reality we could have been two common couples, being free and wild on a ride to Coney Island, ordinary and beautiful lives in a summer glimpse.

And all I had left was the love I saw in their eyes that summer, the love that made me nourish, for ten years, the dream that Toni nourished for five. I grabbed this dream, I cast it in my image and Kevin and swore I would complete it once and for all on behalf of my lost friend. As Toni one day wished, I promised myself I would put all the pieces in the right places and it took me ten years to finally be here.

I don't know if I'm a victim or a perpetrator anymore, but when I look at the old photographs of our enchanted summer, all the morals, the principles, the sentences and the punishments, suddenly everything is vain, suddenly everything will vanish, everything insignificant before the pillars of that dream.

Kevin jumps out of the cab with just a couple of suitcases in his hands and walks up the steps to the pool, dropping his luggage on the floor and shrugging his shoulders, grinning at me like a mischievous child. We have forgotten the blood and bodies that were there ten years ago and we run to each other, a kind of freedom ascending our souls. I take him in my arms and whirl with him on the edge, stumbling and knocking us into the pool already covered with leaves. On the surface, he laughs and wraps his arms around my neck, kissing me with the same fever of that first time.

And suddenly, at the beginning of a cold evening, the tears burn in my eyelids and flow, disappearing into the pool water, disguised. I cry and I break into Kevin's embrace, I whimper and moan, my legs shiver submerged, my heart tight, my breath fading as he smiles at me and holds my tears with tenderness.

"I miss her..." I confess in a whisper. "I miss my friend so much..."

"I know, mon trésor." He lays his forehead against mine. "I know. I miss my friend too."

I keep crying when he carries me inside, when he undresses me, when he lies me down in a warm bath and when he hugs in the the bed, the balcony door of Toni's old room wide open. I keep crying through the night and he holds me patiently, tears lost in his face, which I grope in the dark in search of an understanding no one else could offer.

I know that happy days will come and the pain will become ever more distant until the ends of our existences. I believe that in these last days of summer our lives will follow after we were separated and imprisoned in a dream that wasn't born of our hearts, but which made an abode within us. I know I will never have the genuineness of Toni and that my love for Kevin will never compare to her love for Cheryl, with the purity of it, with the persistence of it, with the strength of it.

But as long as I keep Toni's dream alive, I'll be able to feel she's not gone completely, that a part of her lives in that place and within me. And in the middle of this night of tears and comfort, I swear I can see, in the anchorage on the other side of the bay, a reddish light flashing a promise that, the way we possibly can, we both will be fine. And it sounds like hope again.

For the rest of our lives in the memories of this castle, under the eyes of the mist on the boats down the estuary, with the toes buried in the sand, the ears overflowing notes of a pipe organ and flying birds, and trying to understand if we truly found love on each other after we have witnessed the disappearance of the true greatest love that we have ever seen.

Forever trying to fill the void that this loss has inflicted on us.

Forever pursuing the noble dream of the Great Toni Topaz...

 

And like her, forever running unceasingly toward the past.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you for staying with me. 
> 
> I hope you have enjoyed it. May we meet again soon, in new journeys, dreams and loves. I'm always open for conversations, criticisms, recommendations for stories to read and new ideas for writing.
> 
> See you guys around. :)
> 
> Find me on twitter: @dokkstormur


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